• Rubella eliminated from Singapore. WHO.
• Over the past 30 years, Cambodia has cleared landmines from a total of 2,531 sq km, making the land safe for an estimated nine million people to use for the construction of houses, schools, hospitals, bridges, roads and farming. The Phnom Penh Post.
• Bangladesh attains huge success in reducing infant, maternal mortality. The Business Standard.
• Canada’s overall poverty rate fell from 14.5% in 2015 to 6.4% in 2020. This means that Canada has met its target of reducing poverty by 50% by 2030 ten years ahead of time. National Advisory Council on Poverty (PDF link).
• Abu Dhabi reduces number of single-use plastic bags by half a million per day. The National News.
• The cost of college has stopped rising faster than inflation for the first time since the 1980s. The Hechingerr Report.
• Here are all the positive environmental stories from 2022 so far. Euronews.
• New Mexico voted a child care guarantee into its constitution. CNN.
• Critically endangered tiny gecko comes back from the brink. New Scientist.
• Kenyan female innovator awarded $1.2M for providing clean cooking stove. Africanews.
• Renewable energy sources accounted for 47.1% of Greece’s electricity generation in the first 10 months of the year, surpassing the share of fossil fuels. Ekathimerini.
• Captioned smart glasses let deaf people see, rewind conversations. CBS.
• Immigration naturalizations in the US highest in a decade. Changing America.
• U.S. jobless claims fell last week, showing solid labor market. The Wall Street Journal.

For more good news, check out The Progress Network, and Future Crunch.

• In Tanzania, there has been a 27 percent decline in tuberculosis incidence and a 52 percent reduction in TB deaths. The Citizen.
• Brazil reports almost 28% decrease in malaria from 2017 to 2021. In the Americas overall between 2000 to 2020, malaria cases decreased by 58%. Outbreak News.
• In Kenya, child mortality is about half of what it was 20 years ago. Nation.
• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announces it will spend more than $7 billion over the next four years to support African countries and institutions working to confront hunger, disease, gender inequality, and poverty. Gates Foundation.
• Overall crime in the United Kingdom is now at its lowest level since the 1980s. ONS.
• The governor or Oregon grants pardon for marijuana offenses. Approximately 45,000 people will be impacted. More than $14,000,000 in fines and fees will be forgiven. State of Oregon.
• South Korea has almost zero food waste due to mandatory composting. Guardian.
• Efforts to save the endangered Fender’s blue butterfly in Oregon have quadrupled the population and saved its host plant from extinction as well. The butterfly is slated to be downlisted from endangered to threatened. High Country News.
• Electricity from snow? A Japanese city believes it can be done. Nikkei Asia.
• Promising universal flu vaccine could protect against 20 strains. NewScientist.
• A hundred UK companies sign up for four-day week with no loss of pay. The Guardian.

For more good news, check out The Progress Network, and Future Crunch.

• The proportion of European children classified as ‘severely deprived’ has decreased from 22.8% in 2009 to 14.6% in 2021. European Parliment (PDF link).
• In the last decade, global cases of visceral leishmaniasis have decreased from 64,223 in 2011 to 11,689 in 2021, the lowest since 1998. WHO (PDF link).
• Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has given away nearly $2 billion to 343 organizations over the past seven months. Medium.
• U.S. military suicides drop as leaders push mental health programs. PBS.
• Paris, one of the world’s priciest cities, turbocharges affordable housing. Bloomberg.
• The largest fish in the Amazon, the pirarucu, has been saved from extinction thanks to a community campaign to impose strict fishing regulations. ABC.

For more good news, check out The Progress Network, and Future Crunch.

• New data shows 11% decline in veteran homelessness since 2020—the biggest drop in more than 5 years. HUD.
• From 2020 to 2022, Hispanic people saw a 53 percent jump in health insurance coverage rates through the Affordable Care Act insurance marketplace, Black people 49 percent and Native Americans 32 percent. Washington Post.
• Cigarette smoking in the United States has declined from 20.9% in 2005 to 12.5% in 2020. CDC.
• Between 2000 and 2016, the age-adjusted prevalence of dementia among the nation’s elderly fell by 30 percent. The Hill.
• Blindness and visual impairment in India reduced by 47.1% and 51.9% respectively in 2019 in overall population as compared to WHO’s figures of 2010. The Times of India.
• Minor police encounters plummet after LAPD put limits on stopping drivers and pedestrians. Los Angeles Times.
• Dilip Mahalanabis has died. He pioneered the use of oral rehydration therapy during a refugee crisis which helped save 54 million lives over the past half century. Financial Times.
• Samuel L. Katz, a developer of the measles vaccine, dies at 94. Worldwide, measles killed 2.6 million people a year before the availability of vaccines. The New York Times.
• Chile leads the way in solar energy, far exceeding its goal to reach 20% of energy production from renewable sources by 2025. El Pais.
• US wholesale inflation eases to 8%, 4th straight slowdown. AP.

For more good news, check out The Progress Network, and Future Crunch.

• Covid-19 vaccines saved an estimated 20 million lives during their first year. The Economist.
• Safety net programs in California moved nearly 1.7 million children out of poverty. PPIC.
• Europe’s improved air quality has saved millions of lives in the last few decades. In the early 1990s, nearly a million premature deaths a year were caused by fine particulate pollution. By 2005, that number had been more than halved, and in 2021 dropped to around 300,000. Euronews.
• Lab-grown blood given to people in world-first clinical trial. BBC.
• The movement to replace police with mental health providers for some 911 calls is gaining traction in rural America. Yes! Magazine.
• Voters in four states have approved ballot measures that will change their state constitutions to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for crime. AP.
• This coral reef resurrected itself — and showed scientists how to replicate it. NPR.
• Coming soon: A $25,000 solar-powered electric SUV. Axios.
• Mixed-race neighborhoods are now the norm in America. Back in 1990, 78 percent of White people lived in predominantly White neighborhoods, where at least 4 of every 5 people were also White. In the 2020 Census, that’s plunged to 44 percent. The Washington Post.

For more good news, check out The Progress Network, and Future Crunch.

• Between 2000 and 2020, the global population with access to safely managed drinking water services has increased from 3.8 billion to 5.8 billion people. WHO.
• Although significant gaps remain, disparities between Black and White people continued to narrow at nearly every stage of the criminal justice process between 2016 and 2020. In some cases, the pace of the decline slowed; in others, the disparity gap closed entirely. Council on Criminal Justice.
• In 2011, 39 percent of Nepalis were multidimensionally poor. The percentage dipped to 17.5 in 2019. The Kathmandu Post.
• New vaccine to protect people in the EU and worldwide against dengue. European Medicines Agency.
• Pakistan reduced malaria cases by 45% from 2015-2020. Gavi.
• In 1993, more than one in four children in the US lived below the poverty threshold. 26 years later, that number has fallen to roughly one in 10. Child Trends.
• Pilot programs launched across the US and the rest of the world in the last few years have repeatedly shown that universal basic income pulls people out of poverty, improves health outcomes, and makes it easier for people to find jobs and take care of their children. Washington Post.
• Since 1990, the bipartisan Clean Air Act has reduced fine particulate matter pollution by 41 percent, preventing 370,000 premature deaths each year. NRDC.
• Clean energy has a tipping point, and 87 countries have reached it. Bloomberg.
• Same-sex marriage is now legal in all of Mexico’s states. ABC News.
• Ozone hole continues shrinking in 2022. NASA.

For more good news, check out The Progress Network, and Future Crunch.