Daily the Good Good Good crew collects the very best excellent news on the planet and shares it with our neighborhood. Listed below are the highlights for this week!
If you wish to get excellent news in your inbox day-after-day, be part of the Goodnewsletter — the free each day e-newsletter designed to depart you feeling hopeful.
The Greatest Optimistic Information We’re Celebrating This Week —
Docs With out Borders simply launched a brand new, unprecedented international initiative to diagnose and deal with tuberculosis in youngsters
Below new suggestions from the World Well being Group, a patient-centered strategy to tuberculosis will assist with each early detection and therapy, in addition to enhancing therapy choices. The brand new remedies are shorter, whereas nonetheless being efficient, particularly for very younger youngsters.
To implement these new suggestions, Docs With out Borders simply launched a brand new international initiative to enhance prognosis and therapy of TB amongst youngsters and stop new instances. Known as “TACTiC” (for “Take a look at, Keep away from, Treatment Tuberculosis in Youngsters), the initative can be dropped at over a dozen nations in Africa and Asia.
TB is the world’s deadliest infectious illness — and it’s fully curable. An estimated 10 million folks throughout the globe are contaminated yearly, primarily youngsters, and 1.6 million nonetheless die annually.
Why is that this excellent news? Not solely Docs With out Borders’ initiative (which it has lengthy been preventing for) to implement the brand new testing and therapy suggestions save lives — it is going to end in shorter remedies for kids, which helps their households by lowering journey prices, follow-up time, and offering a greater therapy expertise general.
New knowledge exhibits it’s gotten simpler for folks to vote within the U.S. since 2000
In line with new knowledge from the Middle for Election Innovation & Analysis, voting within the U.S. has gotten simpler within the final twenty years. Since 2020, extra voters have gained entry to early voting — and now, almost each state presents some type of early in-person voting and mail-in voting to all voters.
Regardless of efforts to prohibit entry to voting in some states, almost 97% of voting-age residents throughout the nation now have the choice to vote earlier than Election Day — big progress for enhancing entry to voting.
In complete, 46 states and Washington, D.C. provide early in-person voting — and 37 of these additionally provide mail-in voting to all voters, no excuse required.
The info additionally confirmed that as voters achieve entry to methods of casting their vote — they use them. And in a rustic the place voter turnout continues to be comparatively low in comparison with the remainder of the world, enhancing entry to voting strategies helps enhance voter turnout and illustration.
The location of Pennsylvania’s former largest coal plant will quickly be residence to the state’s largest photo voltaic farm
The Homer Metropolis coal plant, as soon as the most important within the state of Pennsylvania closed its doorways in July of 2023. Now, because of a $90 million grant, 2,700 acres of the land can be residence to the state’s largest photo voltaic farm.
The Mineral Basin Photo voltaic Challenge can be a utility-scale photo voltaic farm producing sufficient clear power to energy 75,000 properties. Its the primary in a sequence of comparable tasks deliberate within the area on former coal mine websites over the subsequent 5 years.
The venture is transferring ahead thanks partly to federal funds within the Bipartisan Infrastructure Regulation, which allocates $550 billion in federal funds to enhance the nation’s infrastructure — together with investing in clear power.
Extra good photo voltaic power information:
Moments earlier than the Baltimore bridge collapsed, officers who heard a “mayday” name rapidly stopped extra vehicles from crossing
Early Tuesday morning, tragedy rocked Baltimore, Maryland when the Francis Scott Key Bridge was struck by a passing cargo ship and collapsed. First responders rapidly began search and rescue for no less than eight individuals who fell into the frigid waters.
Due to a mayday name, officers have been additionally in a position to assist maintain much more folks from falling into the depths beneath. Due to the crew’s swift motion — native officers have been in a position to cease some autos from crossing the bridge earlier than the ship made contact.
Maryland’s governor stated their heroic actions “saved lives” by giving police sufficient time to cease visitors on Interstate 695 — stopping a fair worse tragedy from occurring.
Why is that this excellent news? Other than saving numerous lives, the fast pondering and motion from the ship’s crew and officers on land is a crucial reminder that, whereas tragic issues occur, there are at all times folks doing their half to make a distinction.
And we’ve got little question that the Baltimore neighborhood will proceed to take action because it navigates the impacts of this tragedy (and we’ll proceed telling you about them, too).
In 10 years, poisonous chemical releases declined by 21% within the U.S.
The EPA simply launched its 2022 Toxics Launch Stock Nationwide Evaluation and it had some good progress to report: environmental releases of TRI chemical compounds have been 21% decrease than 2013, together with a 26% lower in air releases.
The evaluation additionally discovered that services managed 88.5% of their TRI chemical waste by means of “most popular” strategies like recycling.
The evaluation notably contains reporting on 180 sorts of PFAS — often known as “without end chemical compounds” — and the report discovered that services made 1.2 million kilos of PFAS waste. Whereas this looks as if loads (it’s nonetheless an excessive amount of!) — it was an 8% lower in comparison with 2021.
Moreover, future stories can be much more correct and clear: there’ll not be an exemption for services that use a “small quantity” of PFAS.
Whereas monitoring this type of knowledge isn’t essentially essentially the most thrilling factor ever — it’s extremely necessary and useful info for communities, policymakers, and different stakeholders. Not solely is the data made publicly obtainable, permitting of us to simply see what sort of air pollution they could be uncovered to the place they reside, it additionally presents a transparent have a look at which communities are seeing a disproportionate quantity of it — important for environmental justice.
Lawmakers in Thailand simply handed historic laws recognizing same-sex marriage
Paving the way in which for it to grow to be the primary nation in Southeast Asia to take action, lawmakers in Thailand simply handed historic marriage equality laws. Technically an modification, round 400 members of the nation’s 500-member home voted to go it.
Now, the laws heads to the Senate and Prime Minister for approval. Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has made it a central challenge, so the laws is anticipated to go.
When the adjustments take impact, the nation will grow to be the third in Asia to acknowledge same-sex marriage registrations for these 18 and older, together with rights to inheritance, tax allowances, baby adoption, and extra.
→ Learn extra
Extra good LGBTQ+ information:
A brand new research discovered {that a} blood take a look at can predict dementia years earlier than an official prognosis
Within the largest research of its form, scientists have found {that a} blood take a look at detecting particular proteins might predict dementia as much as 15 years earlier than an individual receives an official prognosis — with a outstanding 90% accuracy.
Dementia is the UK’s largest killer. Over 900,000 folks within the UK reside with the memory-robbing situation, but lower than two-thirds of individuals obtain a proper prognosis.
This medical breakthrough is critical, as a result of these with undiagnosed dementia, and their households, can’t attend scientific trials, have an organized healthcare plan, or entry important assist. Bettering dementia diagnoses would offer earlier assist and provides sufferers an extended, more healthy, and extra affluent life.
→ Learn extra
Newer medical breakthroughs:
An actual property agent and neighborhood housing group are partnering to assist voucher holders in New York Metropolis get housing
In 2016, the longtime, Brooklyn-based social providers supplier Neighbors Collectively acknowledged a necessity of their neighborhood: voucher holders have been having bother discovering housing because of source-of-income discrimination.
Advocacy and schooling changed into extra hands-on motion once they regarded to begin working with an actual property agent.
Suzanne Adler had beforehand labored with voucher holders and had been “disgusted” at how they have been handled by her fellow brokers and landlords. She utilized to work with Neighbors Collectively to make a distinction.
Along with serving to voucher holders truly discover housing, Adler and Neighbors Collectively host workshops and gatherings to dismantle bias in opposition to voucher holders, who are sometimes stigmatized as “unhealthy tenants.”
Towards the backdrop of an reasonably priced housing scarcity, and in a metropolis the place half of flats are held by companies, they hope their work creates a extra equitable and sustainable housing surroundings the place tenants, brokers, and landlords work collectively — not in opposition to one another.
→ Learn extra
Extra excellent news of the week —
To assist enhance car security, up to date feminine crash take a look at dummies will extra precisely signify the folks working rising automobile fashions. Girls usually tend to maintain deadly accidents in automobile crashes, and new crash take a look at dummies might assist change that.
The EPA simply banned chrysotile asbestos, the final sort of asbestos nonetheless used within the U.S. Publicity is thought to trigger lung most cancers, mesothelioma, ovarian most cancers, and laryngeal most cancers — and asbestos is linked to greater than 40,000 deaths yearly simply within the US.
Canada simply applied new protections for a coral reef that scientists say “shouldn’t exist.” The coral reef is the most recent in a string of situations by which Indigenous information has directed researchers to areas of scientific or historic significance.
A brand new Netflix committee is awarding life-changing grants to trans, nonbinary, and feminine filmmakers. Trade giants like Greta Gerwig and Lily Gladstone joined the committee to award $50,000 grants to eight underrepresented filmmakers.
The UN Safety Council accepted a decision calling for a right away ceasefire in Gaza and launch of hostages. Whereas the council has no technique of implementing the decision, it’s a signal of progress — particularly after many previous resolutions, which might assist enable extra assist to achieve the area, have did not go.
Chemists simply developed a first-of-its-kind “self-healing” plastic that can be biodegradable. The chemistry is a bit over our heads, however the plastic could be produced at room temperature in water, which is rather more power environment friendly and doesn’t require poisonous solvents.
A brand new investigation is asking for accountability relating to the recyclability of Amazon’s plastic packaging. The report provides to a rising physique of proof suggesting that retailer drop-off applications are an ineffective resolution to the escalating plastic air pollution disaster.
The Biden-Harris administration introduced a $180 million funding in class power infrastructure. It’s going to assist college districts implement power upgrades, decrease power use and prices, enhance indoor air high quality, and foster more healthy studying environments.
In Australia, volunteer-led rewilding tasks are serving to restore degraded habitats in cities. The tasks are additionally offering alternatives for folks to attach each with their neighbors and with the planet.
Olivia Rodrigo is donating to ladies’s shelters in the course of the Canadian leg of her Guts World Tour. Rodrigo’s Fund 4 Good will assist Girls’s Shelters Canada, whose 600 nationwide shelters assist ladies and kids fleeing abuse and violence.
Tennessee simply turned the primary state to guard musicians and different artists in opposition to AI. The Making certain Likeness Voice and Picture Safety Act is an up to date model of the state’s proper of publicity regulation and contains AI-specific protections.
A brand new wi-fi electrical car charging pad can fill a automobile’s battery as quick and effectively as a wired plug. The groundbreaking know-how makes means for the potential for quick, environment friendly, and handy charging by parking in a delegated spot.
A primary-of-its-kind psychological well being hotline is hoping to achieve extra LGBTQ+ youth in disaster. Created in partnership with Disaster Textual content Line, FOLX is a nationwide LGBTQ+ digital healthcare service supplier that helps LGBTQ+ folks safely and affordably entry care.
A uncommon daytime sighting of a “ghost chicken” goes viral on TikTok, elevating consciousness of a species in want of safety. Whereas potoos should not presently endangered or in danger, all seven species are presently on the decline because of deforestation and habitat loss.
Washington simply turned the seventh state to require LGBTQ+-inclusive curriculum in colleges. A brand new regulation requires public colleges to show the “histories, contributions, and views” of marginalized teams, together with folks of shade, disabled folks, and LGBTQ+ folks.
