Money

A Florida couple paid cash for their home, Bank of America foreclosed on it anyway

This is the kind of revenge fantasy Hollywood would reject for being too on-the-nose.

Imagine the pitch meeting. A regular couple buys their dream home in Florida with cash. No mortgage, no bank, nothing. One day, Bank of America foreclosed on it anyway, having confused them with someone else entirely. The couple tries calling. They write letters. They get a lawyer, get the foreclosure reversed, and a judge orders the bank to pay their legal fees. The bank ignores that, too.

So our heroes do something most of us have only fantasized about while on hold with customer service. They foreclose on the bank.

A studio exec would pass on this script for being too cathartic. Too tidy. Too "guy at the bar tells you about his cousin." And yet, in this story by Adam Albright-Hanna, every word of it actually happened to Warren and Maureen Nyerges. There are court records. There are sheriff's deputies. There is a moving truck.

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Previous Results

Yesterday, we shared the story of a public health researcher who was forced to give up their screens and discovered a raft of unexpected benefits.

Which hypothetical detox month do GOOD readers think they’d benefit most from? 45% of you would partake in Walktober for a chance to get outside. Whether that means you have your drinking, spending, and screentimes all under control, or if it means you just like the great outdoors, remains unknown.

• Dry January | recover from the holidays without booze (7.8%)

• Screen-free September | put the pixels on pause in the name of mental health (29.9%)

• Walktober | get outside before the weather turns on you (45.5%)

• No-spend November | make Amazon miss you (16.9%)

Everyday Economics

Wait… America's happiest city doesn’t have a beach?

A new ranking weighed 11 factors across 85 cities.

Researchers ranked 85 of America's biggest cities across 11 factors, from life expectancy and mental health days to traffic volume, marriage rates, and whether you can actually find a place to take a walk. (I object to the omission of In-N-Out Burger locations from the criteria!) The result is a happiness map that doesn't look like the one in your head.

The top spot didn't go to a sun-soaked coastal darling or a Rocky Mountain wellness mecca. It went to a city most people drive through on the way to somewhere else, where residents quietly clock some of the country's longest lives, healthiest minds, and best access to the things that make a day feel less like a grind. Jaclyn DeJohn's full breakdown digs into why.

Honolulu, Fremont, and a surprise Pacific Northwest pick all crack the top 10. The full list has at least one entry that's going to start an argument in your group chat.

Society

Ten questions that science says actually start a real conversation

Your small talk might be too small.

Small talk is hard for me. The awkward pauses, the bland exchanges, the seemingly interminable duration. My instinct is to pick a "Big" talk topic and attack it. "So, what are your feelings on the moral implications of zoo ethics in the post-Tiger King era?" Yeah… It’s no good.

Communication expert Jeff Clemishaw has a better idea. Actually, he has 10 of them, sorted by setting: networking events, social hangouts, first dates. Some are backed by research (a Harvard speed-dating study found that people who ask more questions are more likely to land a second date). Others are just smarter versions of the questions you're already fumbling through. All of them beat the weather.

There's also a quiet warning in here about something called "boomerasking," which sounds made up but is unfortunately very real, and you have almost certainly done it.

On April 29, 1899, Edward Kennedy Ellington was born in Washington, D.C., to two piano-playing parents who were absolutely committed to raising a gentleman. They succeeded so thoroughly that childhood friends started calling him "Duke" because of his sharp clothes and impeccable manners, and he remained Duke Ellington for the next 75 years.

Young Duke could not have been less interested in piano. He started lessons at seven with a teacher named Marietta Clinkscales, and he was reportedly her worst student. He'd rather play baseball or paint, and actually won an art scholarship to the Pratt Institute in his teens. What finally turned him toward the keyboard was a strategic teenage observation: pretty girls tended to gather around whoever was playing.

That extremely pragmatic decision rerouted American music. Ellington went on to compose more than 1,000 pieces, lead the same orchestra for 50 years, win 13 Grammys, and earn a posthumous Pulitzer in 1999. Critics took to calling him simply "America's most important composer."

Not bad for a kid who only sat down at the piano to impress girls. Happy 127th, Duke.

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