Friday, October 16, 2026
Good news about America: Friday, October 16, 2026
From American history
In 1817, New York set out to dig a ditch from the Hudson River to Lake Erie—363 miles of it, cleared by hand and animal power and blasted with gunpowder. Critics mocked it as “Clinton’s Ditch,” after Gov. DeWitt Clinton, its loudest champion. Two of its chief engineers, Benjamin Wright and James Geddes, were land surveyors with no canal experience, and they got it remarkably right. On October 26, 1825, Clinton left Buffalo aboard the Seneca Chief as cannons spaced within earshot relayed the news to New York Harbor in about an hour and twenty minutes. On November 4, he poured a cask of Lake Erie water into the Atlantic. Freight costs fell to about a tenth. Some ditch. America has never minded being called foolish on its way to being right.
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1. Arsenal of freedom, reloaded: Lockheed Martin plans 6,000 American jobs to build critical munitions faster
Original title: “Lockheed Martin Expands Advanced Munitions Manufacturing in Texas, Driving Thousands of New American Jobs”
Lockheed Martin is investing $300 million to grow its Grand Prairie, Texas, missile plant past 735,000 sq. ft., part of plans for 6,000 U.S. jobs (2,000 in Texas) and a push to triple or quadruple output of critical munitions.
2. “This is what I trained to be”: Florida Guard soldiers pull a family of four from a sinking truck
Original title: “Florida Guard Soldiers rescue family during Hurricane Isaias response”
Eight Florida Army National Guard soldiers in a hurricane-response convoy spotted an arm waving from a sinking pickup near an I-10 ramp Oct. 10, forced it open and got all four family members ashore. They've earned a state heroism medal.
Source: Read the full story: Florida Guard Soldiers rescue family during Hurricane Isaias response →
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3. Special delivery, 250 miles up: an American Dragon brings the space station its last new solar arrays
Original title: “SpaceX Cargo Dragon delivers more than 6,000 pounds of supplies to the ISS”
SpaceX's CRS-35 cargo Dragon docked with the space station Oct. 15 carrying 6,300+ pounds for NASA, including the last of the station's upgraded roll-out solar arrays and hardware to make artificial retinas in microgravity.
Source: Read the full story: SpaceX Cargo Dragon delivers more than 6,000 pounds of supplies to the ISS →
4. Made-to-order molecular scissors: UW scientists design enzymes from scratch to cut disease proteins
Original title: “Molecular ‘scissors’ open path to new therapies”
UW Medicine's Institute for Protein Design used deep learning to design all-new proteases that cut chosen protein targets, including Alzheimer's-linked amyloid-beta, opening a path to drugs for "undruggable" targets. Two Nature papers.
Source: Read the full story: Molecular ‘scissors’ open path to new therapies →
5. A pastor's lifetime of thrift becomes a gift for the ages: Fort Valley State receives the largest donation in its history
Original title: “Late Macon pastor gives $5.8 million to FVSU”
The estate of the late Rev. Eddie D. Smith Sr., a longtime Macon pastor and FVSU alumnus, and his wife Martha gave the Georgia HBCU $5.8 million, its largest gift ever. Another $5.8 million is going to St. Jude Children's Hospital.
Source: Read the full story: Late Macon pastor gives $5.8 million to FVSU →