• Thousands of deaths avoided in 7.4 magnitude Taiwan earthquake due to strengthened building codes and infrastructure. CNN.
• Slovakia has stopped production at its last coal-fired power plant 6 years ahead of schedule. Euronews.
• 12 US states now get most of their electricity from renewables. The Progress Playbook.
• Solar topped coal in Texas for the first time ever in March. electrek.
• Massachusetts pardons all misdemeanor marijuana possession convictions affecting potentially hundreds of thousands of people. Axios.
• Gender pay gap in Great Britain smallest since reporting first enforced. The Guardian.
• In the US, employers added 303,000 jobs in March, the strongest in 10 months. Axios.

For more good news, check out Fix the News and The Progress Network.

• Cancer mortality has declined in many countries. Our World in Data.
• Child poverty in Uzbekistan decreases by 7.8% in two years. DARYO.
• Populations of numbats and bilbies are recovering. Australian Wildlife Conservancy.
• China adds 14% of world’s total solar capacity in 2023 alone. S&P Global.
• A record 60% of Europe’s electricity was powered by clean energy sources in the opening two months of 2024. Reuters.
• 3D-printed skin closes wounds and contains hair follicle precursors. PennState.

For more good news, check out Fix the News and The Progress Network.

• New study: Poverty has decreased more than we thought, as has inequality – including within countries. Warp News.
• Real wages of low-wage workers grew 12.1% between 2019 and 2023. Economic Policy Institute.
• Each of the past four generations of Americans (Millennials, Generation X, Baby Boomers, and Silent Generation) was better off than the previous one. SSRN.
• In Cambodia over the last two decades, the mortality rate from tuberculosis has dropped by 45 percent, saving an estimated 400,000 lives. The Star.
• Toxic chemical releases have declined 21% in 10 years in USA. Clean Technica.
• Scientists say they have successfully eliminated HIV from infected cells, using Nobel Prize-winning Crispr gene-editing technology. BBC.
• Surgeons transplant pig kidney into a patient, a medical milestone. New York Times.

For more good news, check out Fix the News and The Progress Network.

• For the first time on record, the number of children worldwide who died before their 5th birthday has dipped below 5 million. In 2022, 4.9 million young children died – that’s fewer than half the number who died in 2000. NPR.
• In the United States, there was a 13% decline in murder last year (the largest one-year decline ever recorded), 6% decline in violent crime, (likely the lowest rate since the late 1960s), and a 4% decline in property crime. Jeff-alytics.
• Germany’s emissions fell by record 10.1% in 2023. Euronews.
• Brazil installed about 17 gigawatts of solar last year, roughly equal to its entire solar market in 2021. These catapulted Brazil to the world’s third largest solar market in 2023, after China and the US. BloombergNEF.
• Woman given a new 3D-printed windpipe in a world-first. BBC.

For more good news, check out Fix the News and The Progress Network.

• India eliminates extreme poverty. Brookings.
• Breast cancer death rate dropped 58 percent over the past 44 years in the U.S. The Washington Post.
• After near extinction, the saltwater crocodile has achieved a full recovery in Australia. Science Direct.
• The Florida Golden Aster removed from the endangered list. US Fish and Wildlife Service.
• In Pakistan mangroves expanded nearly threefold between 1986 and 2020. Mongabay.
• Since 2016, 2.5 million plants and 880,000 trees have been planted in 30 corridors in Medellín, reducing pollution and bringing temperatures down by 2°C in a city of 2.5 million people. Reasons to be Cheerful.
• 1 in 5 new car sales globally were EVs in 2023. Electrek.
• In 2023, solar represented over half of the electricity added to the United States grid. Latitude Media.
• Spain has so much solar that electricity costs are almost free. Bloomberg.
• Due to a new breakthrough, life expectancy for those with cystic fibrosis has risen from 35 to 82. The Atlantic.
• In Nepal, the maternal mortality rate has declined from 536 per 100,000 live births in 1996 to 151 by 2021. Nepali Times.
• Nearly half the electricity produced in the Netherlands is now renewable. CBS.

For more good news, check out Fix the News and The Progress Network.

• $1 billion donation will provide free tuition at a Bronx medical school. The New York Times.
• Italy, home of the mafia, now one of Europe’s safest countries. Yahoo News.
• The Biden-Harris Administration has approved student debt cancellation for nearly 3.9 million Americans totaling almost $138 billion in relief. US Department of Education.
• Slovenia has seen cases of cervical cancer drop by almost half over the last 20 years, with the number of deaths from the disease also falling. WHO.
• Nepal’s Terai Arc Landscape initiative restored 66,800 hectares of forest and significantly increased the Bengal tiger population in the region. Mongabay.
• How Finland halved its suicide rate. The Guardian.
• Electric car sales hit record with over 1 million sold in January. Warp News.

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

• How Finland conquered homelessness. Spiegel.
• Critically endangered parrot bounces back in huge conservation victory. Science Alert.
• Mapping the world’s corals reveals more reefs than previously known. Bloomberg.
• Greece becomes first Orthodox Christian country to legalize same-sex marriage. The Guardian.
• In the half-century before the covid-19 pandemic, the black unemployment rate was on average twice as high as the white one. At the end of last year the black unemployment rate was only 1.5% higher than the white one, the narrowest gap on record. The Economist.
• Polio eradication is within reach. Our World in Data.
• Cambodia on track to eradicate malaria by 2025. Khmer Times.

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

• The United States has cut heart disease death rates by 70% since 1950 and stroke death rates by nearly a third since 1998. American Heart Association (PDF link).
• The poverty rate in Cambodia has declined from 36.7 percent in 2014 to 16.6 percent in 2022 and the number of poor people was halved from 5.6 million to 2.8 million. Khmer Times.
• Millennials have a real median household income that is 18 percent higher than that of the previous generation at the same age. Federal Reserve (PDF link).
• 95,000 Mauritanians supplied with clean drinking water thanks to decentralized cooperation. Afrik21.
• Agricultural growth key to accelerated poverty reduction in Bangladesh. The Financial Express.
• The Dominican Republic miracle: a fifth of the country regreened in 10 years. El Pais.
• European bison are no longer considered to be endangered. BBC.
• China’s carbon emissions are set to decline years earlier than expected. The Wall Street Journal.
• South Australia reached a record average of 82 per cent renewables in the December quarter. Renew Economy.
• In a first, a prosthetic limb can sense temperature like a living hand. Smithsonian.

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

• Between 1989-2024, almost 6.2 million cancer deaths have been avoided in the EU and 1.3 million in the UK. Annals of Oncology.
• Homicides in Mexico dropped by 4.18% in 2023, marking the third consecutive year of decline. La Prensa Latina.
• In India, the number of women enrolling in higher education increased by 32% between 2015 and 2022, from 15.7 million to over 20 million. Economic Times.
• Rates of U.S. gun violence decreased in 2023. CAP 20.
• U.S. teen smoking rates have plummeted, with less than 1% now daily smokers. Health Day.
• In the EU, fossil fuels dropped by a record 19% to their lowest ever level at less than one third of the EU’s electricity generation and renewables rose to a record 44% share. Ember.
• Germany’s coal power production drops to lowest level in 60 years in 2023. Clean Energy Wire.
• Texas recently generated 80% of its power from renewable and nuclear power for more than six hours. Houston Chronicle.
• India electrified 45% of its railway network in just five years. Energy Monitor.
• 93.9% of all new vehicles sold in Norway are electric. Clean Technica.
• More than 1,000 new EV charging stations have come online in the US since last summer. Bloomberg.
• Two thousand years ago, a volcanic eruption buried an ancient library of papyrus scrolls now known as the Herculaneum Papyri. These lumps of carbonized ash cannot be opened without severely damaging them. However, thanks to the Vesuvius Challenge, these scrolls can now be read.

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

• India on the verge of eliminating black fever. DW.
• Between 2000 and 2020, Lao’s maternal mortality rate fell by over 250 per cent. UNFPA.
• Wild panda population nearly doubles as China steps up conservation efforts. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has adjusted the status of giant pandas from “endangered” to “vulnerable”. The Straits Times.
• In England, forest coverage now is greater than at any time since the Black Death nearly 700 years ago. China’s forests have increased by about 607,000 square kilometers since 1992, a region the size of Ukraine. The European Union has added an area equivalent to Cambodia to its woodlands, while the US and India have together planted forests that would cover Bangladesh in an unbroken canopy of leaves. Bloomberg.
• EU fossil fuel CO2 emissions hit 60-year low. The Guardian.
• Clean energy was top driver of China’s economic growth, accounting for 40% of the expansion of GDP in 2023. Carbon Brief.
• China added more solar panels in 2023 than US did in its entire history. Bloomberg.
• Renewable technologies generated more electricity than Scotland used in 2022, new statistics show. Scottish Government.
• The world added 50% more renewable capacity in 2023 than in 2022. IEA.
• The best-selling car in the world last year was all-electric. Inside EVs.
• In the fourth quarter of 2023, electric vehicles made up 20% of all new passenger cars sold in the world. Bloomberg.
• There is now one fast-charging station for every 16 gas stations in the United States. Bloomberg.
• 250 million Indians came out of multidimensional poverty in the last nine years. India Today.
• In the US, poverty has fallen by 27 percentage points since 1980. Notre Dame News.
• In the US, the use of coal for electricity production decreased to the lowest level in half a century. Warp News.

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