🥞 Don’t you...forget to read this

🥞 The breakfast club. It started as Wednesday morning breakfast for her two grandsons and a few of their friends. The kids enjoyed the meal, sealed it with hugs for grandma, and a breakfast club was born. Word of Grandma Peggy Winckowski’s unbeatable breakfast, served with love, spread through the high school community. Before long, she was preparing breakfast for 20-30 teens weekly.

Sadly her grandson, Sam, passed away in a tragic accident. In that moment of despair, it was the breakfast club that visited Peggy every day for a week to check in. Eventually, they asked if she might want to continue their tradition, to her delight.

She told KTVI St. Louis: “I lost my grandson in a tragic accident but if you try to turn the bad into good, you can get 20-30 extra kids that all call me Grandma Peggy. I think that Sam was putting this in place so I wouldn’t be lonely.”

Who wouldn’t want to eat at Grandma Peggy’s? It sounds like the best breakfast club since five kids in Saturday detention debunked our perception of teenage stereotypes. Surely, among Grandma Peggy’s club, there’s a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal (well, hopefully not that one), but they can all agree on one thing: there’s no better place to be on Wednesday mornings.

💊 More bad news for cancer. This is a good news newsletter, but sometimes the best news is actually bad news: bad news for cancer.

Our brightest minds continue to wage their battle with the loathsome disease, and with each passing week and each breakthrough, it seems they’re advancing the battlefront further into enemy territory. Dr. Mary McCormack from University College London called a recent breakthrough in treating cervical cancer “the biggest improvement in outcome in this disease in over 20 years.”

The research trial tested the effects of a short course of chemotherapy given before regular treatment. It reduced the risk of the disease returning by 35%. This relatively simple act produced massive improvements in outcome, and those improvements are ready to scale; the requisite drugs are approved for use and relatively accessible. That’s a game-changer.

Meanwhile, at UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, scientists have identified a protein on receptors that can send a signal causing cancer cells to destroy themselves. The identification of the protein will allow researchers to more effectively target those receptors on tumors, causing them to self-destruct. While it’s early, the breakthrough could improve the efficacy of immunotherapy treatments

The war is ongoing, but the momentum is entirely with the good guys.

📰 Breaking news: you’re getting a new kidney. Last week, TikTok righted a wrong for a woman seeking to reward an outstanding customer service representative. That was amazing, but this week, we have a story that raises the stakes.

Katie Hallum posted a video poking fun at her unfortunate predicament: she needed a kidney transplant due to a disorder called IgA Nephropathy. However, her O blood type rendered finding a suitable match difficult. But Savannah Stallbaumer saw the TikTok and embarked on the testing process.

Months later, the miraculous news was confirmed: she was a perfect match.

@chaychaywayway

Haha jk, unless…? #inthecrowd #collegelife #kidneyfailure #kidneytransplant #strangerthings #challenge #organdonor

Stallbaumer delivered the news to Hallum, who works as a reporter for her local radio station, with a sign: “BREAKING NEWS: You’re getting a new kidney.”

The transplant went beautifully in August, and Hallum is recovering well. The Hallum family invited their new friend Savannah for Christmas, but the greatest gift that she could possibly offer was already given, and thankfully, it can’t be found under a tree.

😀 Prices on rollback. Inflation has treated the American consumer harshly. It seems each trip to the store is more expensive than the last, and those incremental price increases add up when they impact almost every item we buy. Finally, though, some good news is on the way, according to the CEO of Walmart Doug McMillon.

McMillon expects the company to manage a period of deflation in the coming months, which is a challenge for the company but a boon to its customers. Walmart is set to rollback prices on general merchandise (non-grocery items), alleviating pressure on wallets.

Toys, for instance, are suddenly selling at a discount, just in time for the holidays. The Furby (wild that those are still around) is down from $59 to $49 and Barbie’s Malibu House (Ryan Gosling’s Ken not included) is down from $89 to $69. No word on the price of the Mojo-Dojo-Casa-House, where the brewski-beers flow like wine.

Some grocery bills might be getting lighter as well. The American Farm Bureau reports that the average price of a Thanksgiving dinner is down 4.5% from 2022. We’ll not only be enjoying the delicious taste of canned cranberry sauce this week (undefeated against all homemade rivals), but we can also savor the flavor of savings.

🚲 Like riding a bike. “I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least energy to move a kilometer. And humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing, about a third of the way down the list. It was not too proud a showing for the crown of creation.

So, that didn’t look so good. But, then somebody at Scientific American had the insight to test the efficiency of locomotion for a man on a bicycle. And, a man on a bicycle, a human on a bicycle, blew the condor away, completely off the top of the charts.“

Steve Jobs sought to transform the computer into a bicycle for the mind. But in explaining that analogy, he reminds us that the bicycle was an absolutely transformative invention for mankind. That miracle on wheels makes us the most efficient species on Earth, and it was on this day in 1966 that the French inventor Pierre Lallement was awarded a patent for the rotary crank bicycle.

Even today, we look to the bicycle as the solution to many of the problems - parking, traffic, and pollution among them - that humanity has created with inventions since. And it’s still the bicycle that empowers children with some of their first feelings of independence and adventure. The world awaits just in front of our handlebars.

Fittingly, the Tour de France was also created on this day in 1902, but most of us don’t need to wear yellow or climb mountains. We just need a quicker way to get around and a pleasant way to take in the scenery. Even better if we have shocks and pegs.

🚛 Ex-con comes good. John Lally thought the sirens were for him. Those are the lingering symptoms of multiple stints behind bars.

But the police lights flashed by his truck in pursuit of a stolen vehicle, and in a few moments, Lally would play the role of hero rather than con. The stolen car crashed into traffic at speed, and as officers approached. the suspect exited the vehicle, firing at the police and wounding one in the leg. Though the exchange continued, Lally felt compelled into action.

He approached the wounded officer, and with the help of another policeman, he dragged him to safety behind Lally’s truck. While other officers continued to pursue the suspect, Lally remained with Officer Gibson, reassuring him and holding his hand throughout. Keeping Gibson’s attention, he noted he had been to prison multiple times and, after working to change his life, felt it was his calling to be with the officer that day.

This Great Samaritan is a man reformed and redeemed, a reminder that all can find a new path, that everyone can still have much to offer. Sometimes, life’s new paths lead right to a pivotal moment. This pivotal moment saw the officer in stable condition and Lally hailed a hero.

🍺 Guten tag! There are many ways to make new friends, but a lot of them center around shared hobbies and interests. For a group of 55 German tourists, that shared interest was pounding beers.

Last month in Mallorca, those tourists combined to set a world record for the most beers drank in three hours, gulping down 1,254 cold ones. That averages to 22 beers per person at a rate of 7.6 per hour. Oh, and by the way, the group hadn’t met in person until they combined to deliver a generational ass-kicking to Mallorca’s beer supply.

The group was organized through WhatsApp months in advance by a 62-year-old businessman, who noted the feat was accomplished in an orderly manner with no issues, just a lot of fun. It might not be everyone’s icebreaker of choice - certainly not the human liver’s - but let’s raise a frosty mug to those thirsty Germans who now have more than 50 friends for life.

Prost!

👩🏽‍🦲 The no-hair hero. The NFL success of Vikings quarterback Josh Dobbs is its own feel-good story. Already on his eighth team, Dobbs made headlines nationwide when he led the Vikings to victory just days after he was traded to the team; at the time, he didn’t know the plays or his teammates’ names.

But it’s not just his heroics on the field that are worth mentioning. Dobbs suffers from alopecia, rendering him hairless. He’s not the only one - young Vikings fan Gregory is also afflicted with the disease. It can’t be an easy affliction to endure as a kid, but now he - and his peers - are watching someone who looks just like him balling out on the biggest stage.

Solidifying their connection, Dobbs recently sent Gregory a signed jersey, eliciting a smile so wide it’ll make your own cheeks sore just by looking at it.

The quarterback’s inspiration as a role model will be far more important than any pass he throws this season.

🏃‍♀️ Wolves run in packs. Katelyn Tuohy won last year’s NCAA Women’s Cross Country Championship, leading the way for the NC State Wolfpack en route to a second consecutive title. This past weekend in Charlottesville, the Pack took to the course in search of a three-peat, but they’d have to do it without a key contributor and with Tuohy battling an illness she contracted the day prior to the race.

A drained Tuohy willed her way to a fifth place finish individually, fighting her way back from 11th place more than halfway through the race. Despite the gutsy run, she feared she might not have done enough to help her team claim another title. On the verge of delirium from exhaustion, she found her coach at the finish, tearfully apologizing for not finishing a few places higher.

That’s when she learned NC State had won….by a solitary point.

It might not have ended the way she would’ve liked individually, but you can see how much the team title means to Tuohy, who had likely just run in her last ever collegiate cross country race. A professional career beckons after the academic year for the Adidas athlete.

⚽️ Libertad Para Papa (part 3). We bring the story of Luis Diaz’s father’s kidnapping to a close in the most uplifting fashion possible this week.

It’s currently an international break in world football, meaning players leave their club teams to represent their countries in competition. As a result, Diaz traveled home to South America and reunited with his father for the first time since the incident. Better yet, his father was in the stands to watch his son and the Colombian national team play Brazil.

Diaz commemorated the occasion by scoring not one, but two goals to power Colombia past Brazil. The reaction from his father says it all:

My reaction will be similar on Thursday when I’ve already filled every void in my stomach with mashed potato and the pies are served.

When you consider what could have been for the Diaz family, seeing this joyous occasion makes you want to savor all the celebratory moments life has to offer.