Good news for people who like good news

• “One million workers get pay boost as 10 states adjust minimum wage”

• The Washington National Cathedral will host weddings for same-sex couples:

The cathedral’s dean, the Very Rev. Gary Hall, told the AP, “I read the Bible as seriously as fundamentalists do. And my reading of the Bible leads me to want to do this because I think it’s being faithful to the kind of community that Jesus would have us be.”

(Note: The cathedral is the seat of the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church and its Washington diocese. Despite the “National” moniker, it does not have any official “national” status. This is America, a nation, not a church. We don’t have official government cathedrals.)

• “Warren Buffett’s MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. agreed to spend as much as $2.5 billion to build two solar projects in California that are set to be the world’s largest photovoltaic development.”

• “The ‘million-a-year’ death toll from malaria has been whacked to fewer than 700,000, the lowest level in recorded human history.”

• “Is there anything more Canadian than a line of customers who kept paying forward an act of goodwill for three hours at a Tim Hortons in Winnipeg? Probably not.” (via Charles Kuffner)

• The new Congress does not include Allen West, Joe Walsh, Dan Burton, Roscoe Bartlett, Mean Jean Schmidt, Cliff Stearnes, Jim DeMint, Joe Lieberman, Ron Paul or Todd Akin.

• “In just over a month the Rolling Jubilee has raised almost half a million dollars, which has been used to erase more than $9 million of debt.”

• Milford, Del., has removed the racist playground signs with the alternative Spanish message threatening arrest and/or deportation.

• Vicco, Kentucky, is a town in Kentucky.

• An interesting experiment at Chicago’s Park Community Church:

At Park Community Church’s 11 a.m. service on the Near North Side, ushers doled out envelopes filled varying amounts of cash with church members instructed to put the nearly $12,000 to work in what the Tribune called “the corners of the community where they think it will do the most good.”

Most of the envelopes had a few dollars inside, while others had more than $100, according to Fox Chicago.

• “Nearly everything I have stood for these past 35 years went down to defeat,” …  said James Dobson. (This would be even better news if not for that “nearly.”)

• And this may seem like it’s not earth-shattering news, but Noah’s moms’ CRV passed the 100,000-mileage mark, and that made me happier than almost any other recent news.