Good News is a weekly collection of stories from this week about things that were actually pretty nice. Given the general state of everything, we all deserve a concentrated dose of good news. This week: a ton of people get their jobs back, Congress manages to do something positive, an underdog—or rather, undercat—beats out major players at the Oscars, and more.
Over 5,000 federal employees get their jobs back
On Wednesday, a government employee oversight board decided that over 5,000 employees of the Department of Agriculture were illegally terminated by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. These 5,000 employees—all of whom are probationary, meaning they’ve been at their job for a year or less—got their jobs back through at least April 18, 2025.
The board’s decision expanded on a previous one from February 26, which restored six fired federal employees to their jobs.
This is good news for a number of reasons. Probationary or not, there are now 5,000 more people working at the USDA as we grapple with the bird flu. Given the USDA’s role in food inspection, that’s great for any American who eats food. The decision also strengthens the legal case that Trump and Musk’s wanton firing spree is illegal, meaning that more people could get their jobs back in the future.
Congress does NOT vote to define trans people out of existence
Usually, when we see Congress is making headlines, we bury our heads in our hands and look at the story through the gaps in our fingers. But there was at least one story this week where Congress did something good.
On Tuesday, the Senate voted on a bill that would’ve barred transgender women and girls from participating in school sports for female athletes. And it didn’t pass because not a single Democrat voted for it. The bill is dead.
LGBTQ+ activists pointed out that the bill in question would’ve used the school sports issue to effectively define transgender individuals out of legal existence. Its defeat is a hopeful symbol that, as the Democrats flail to pose any meaningful response or resistance to the Trump regime, they at least are able to protect some rights as the GOP attacks our transgender population.
Don’t get me wrong. Pressure on Democrats shouldn’t let up, and they majorly messed up mere days later. But it’s nice to know no one will break party ranks over LGBTQ+ rights. At least … for now.
Flow, No Other Land win at the Oscars
The Oscars were on Sunday, and once you unplugged your ears from the Emilia Perez composers’ cringey impromptu acceptance song, there were two huge success stories from the night. One was No Other Land, a Palestinian-Israeli film that won Best Documentary Feature Film. The film shows a Palestinian activist’s struggle as he attempts to save his hometown in the West Bank from demolition by Israeli forces.
Despite the film not being about the ongoing genocide in Gaza (a separate territory), the general US reception of the film boils down to a dark statistic: not a single US distributor picked up No Other Land. That makes the film one of the first to win an Oscar without major US distribution. No Other Land‘s win forced that shameful bias into national headlines, as well as forced the Oscars’ millions of viewers to at least momentarily reckon with their biases against Palestinian causes. After all, Israeli journalist and filmmaker Yuval Abraham used his acceptance speech to decry “the atrocious destruction of Gaza and its people.”
The other huge success story from the Oscars came in the Best Animated Feature category, where Flow—an independent, dialogue-less Latvian film—beat out Pixar and DreamWorks. Yes, Inside Out 2 and The Wild Robot were good. But Flow was better, and its win is being widely celebrated in the animation community.
For one, Flow is the first-ever independent production to win Best Animated Feature. We want a healthy independent film industry, and this win could have huge positive ripple effects. Furthermore, the category has been absolutely dominated by Disney and Pixar until Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinnochio‘s win in 2023 and The Boy and the Heron‘s in 2024. This now three-film-long string of wins potentially signals that the Academy is finally realizing something the animation community has been shouting at them for over a decade: animation is not just for kids.
Furthermore, Flow is the first Latvian film ever to win an Oscar. The Latvian president himself celebrated on social media. It’s nice to find a story where literally everyone is happy about something. It’s a rarity these days.
Three NYC Barnes & Noble stores ratify union contracts
On Thursday, three Barnes & Noble stores in New York City ratified their union contracts. They are now the first unionized Barnes & Noble workplaces in the country. A store in Bloomington, Illinois is seemingly right behind and will be holding their own ratification vote on Saturday, March 8.
The NYC stores will now join the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union, which represents workers from 40% of the city’s largest bookstores. The union contract codifies safety protections for workers, as well as other necessities like wage increases and union healthcare.
Congratulations to the workers of these three—hopefully soon four—stores. Especially in a country increasingly ruled by tech moguls, union representation matters.
Haikyuu!!, Demon Slayer fans get excellent news
Lastly, we turn to the world of anime. Demon Slayer fans got some big news this week when streamer and distributor Crunchyroll revealed that the first of the popular series’ trilogy of final films will land in the US and Canada in September.
But the reaction to that news positively paled in comparison to the Haikyuu!! news from earlier in the week. If you don’t know about Haikyuu!! … first of all, watch or read Haikyuu!! It’s about high school volleyball, but even if you don’t typically like sports anime, it is one of the most genuine, sincere, heartwarming series in existence. It is a perfect balm for our times. Americans have forgotten that people can be this nice, even and especially during competitive sports.
Anyway, now that you’re a Haikyuu!! fan (welcome), there’s big Haikyuu!! news. See, the Haikyuu!! anime got kind of botched by the pandemic, so the powers that be decided to wrap up the anime in a series of films—not dissimilar to Demon Slayer.
There were initially going to be two films. The first was The Dumpster Battle, which premiered last year to record audiences in Japan and depicted a single game. If you’ve read the manga, you know that there’s no way in hell the second film could cover all the remaining material—two games, plus a fair amount of extra plot happenings—without feeling rushed.
And so, the fandom collectively lost their minds when the next film was not only revealed but the word “final” was critically removed from the title. An additional anime special was announced as well. “So we successfully bullied them out of ending it with 2 movies by making them too much money,” quipped X user Relux. “Good work soldiers.”
Published: Mar 7, 2025 10:05 PM UTC