Black British women’s Saturday night style, swimming in wild waters – and more of this week’s good news

Good morning.

As heels return to the dancefloor, Emma Loffhagen sits down with archivist Deborah Carnegie, who has documented how Black British women led the way in fashion, especially on a Saturday night out.

The “warm familiarity” of the images shows 70 years of women from the 1950s to the present day, tracing key influences and events that bring the Black British community together, donning their best pieces.

So if you’re going out this Saturday night, dress up – in heels or not – and remember the women who define fashion.

Keep reading for more good news stories from our First Edition newsletter.

The Guardian newsletters team

Saturday’s baseball game between the Atlanta Braves and the visiting Miami Marlins was, at first glance, a relatively meaningless bout between two middling teams with little to play for late in the season. It saw, however, a remarkable moment in Major League Baseball history as umpire Jen Pawol became the first woman in league history to referee a game. After a decade working up through the minor leagues, the 48-year-old former art teacher, finally got her much-deserved chance.

“It was pretty amazing when we took the field,” Pawol said after the game. “It seemed like quite a few people started clapping and saying my name, so that was pretty intense and very emotional.”

Food writer Angela Hui offers much food for thought in a charming piece for our One change that worked series: the power of complimenting strangers.

Always envious of those who easily light up rooms, Hui set herself a challenge to be more inquisitive and deliberate in seeking out conversation by chatting to one new person a day. “Whether it’s a cashier, a barista or someone walking past me, I try to say it out loud instead of just thinking it,” Hui writes. “The other day, in the queue at Golden Gate Bakery in London’s Chinatown, I told an older Asian woman her perm looked incredible. All bounce, no frizz. We ended up bonding over which bakeries still make proper old-school Chinese pineapple buns.”

Thousands more waterways are being used for swimming and boating in England than previously thought.

The Environment Agency had listed 342 waterways in England as being used for outdoor activities like paddle boarding, rowing, sailing and surfing. In fact, the number is 10 times that, with 3,347 “water recreation locations” around the country.

“This research only confirms what we’ve been saying for years. England’s wild waters are alive with swimmers, surfers, sailors and paddlers all year round,” says Dani Jordan, the director of campaigns and communities at Surfers Against Sewage.

Only 451 are official bathing sites, and campaigners are pushing for more lakes and rivers to be cleaned up so people can enjoy them safely.

Natural England is celebrating the comeback of 150 previously struggling species, including the return of the Duke of Burgundy butterfly. A series of targeted conservation projects have facilitated this recovery and demonstrated how a “joined up, collaborative approach” can spell success for conservation.

Celebrations will take place at Brandon Marsh nature reserve, which has returned to hosting the Eurasian bittern, a wading bird which has found a renewed home in habitats of deep pools and reedbeds produced by the programme. The work done by Natural England has set a positive precedent for further recovery of rare species.

Amitav Ghosh is the latest contributor to the Future Library Project, known for his well-loved work in historical fiction and, more recently, climate change.

The Future Library project was set up in 2014 by Scottish artist Katie Paterson. Innovatively, the project places books and nature in conversation with one another as authors contribute a new manuscript yearly, to be printed only a 100 years later, in 2114. The paper used to print these books will come from a forest just outside Oslo, also planted in 2014.

Paterson celebrates the work of Ghosh: “His stories traverse oceans and centuries, revealing how the climate crisis is inseparable from histories of empire, migration and myth.”