Every day the Good Good Good team collects the best good news in the world and shares it with our community. Here are the highlights for this week!
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The Best Positive News We’re Celebrating This Week —
Low-traffic zones in London have reduced deaths and injuries by a third
The goal of low-traffic neighborhoods, or LTNs, is to make smaller residential roads more friendly for biking, walking, and other pedestrian activities by stopping through-traffic of motor vehicles. They’ve been used in the UK for decades, but were expanded in 2020.
Now, a new study found that London’s LTNs reduced road injuries and deaths by 35% within their boundaries compared to roads that did not have them. This amounted to the LTNs preventing more than 600 road injuries, including 100 involving death or serious injury.
And while one of the main critiques of LTNs is that they just push and concentrate dangerous traffic to nearby roads, the study also found that this did not happen.
Why is this good news? People deserve to have options for how to get around. Car-centric infrastructure and communities make alternatives like biking and walking more dangerous — plus, they result in poorer air quality.
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A ‘scrappy’ network of volunteers in a Massachusetts town is protecting its neighbors from ICE
In June, solar power was the EU’s largest source of electricity for the first time ever
Overtaking nuclear and wind, solar power was the European Union’s largest source of electricity for the first time in history last month — and coal fell to an all-time low.
Record sunshine and more solar installations pushed solar ahead to generating 22.1% of the EU’s electricity, up from 18.9% in June 2024. Nuclear made up 21.8% and wind 15.8%, while coal fell to 6.1%.
Demonstrating “how rapidly the EU’s power system is changing,” at least 13 countries in the EU recorded the highest-ever monthly solar generation — that included Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands.
‘Sinners’ is now the first film to offer Black American Sign Language through a streaming service
When “Sinners” first hit theaters in April, it quickly became one of the highest-grossing horror films ever produced — and it earned praise for its inventive depiction of Black history and culture.
When it was released on HBO Max earlier this month, the movie made headlines again, becoming the first film ever to offer Black American Sign Language interpretation through a streaming service.
The divergence of BASL and American Sign Language was largely driven by the segregation of schools in the American South throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. And even with desegregation, the style, structure, and syntax of BASL continued and are still practiced today.
Why is this good news? Offering films in various languages is important for making art and entertainment available and accessible to everyone. There are important nuances that differentiate BASL from ASL, and it’s important to offer it, too.
An estimated 27 billion diapers are discarded annually — these ‘mushroom diapers’ might lighten the load
The share of U.S. adults who say immigration is “a good thing” for the country just hit a record high
According to a new Gallup poll, 79% Americans today say immigration is “a good thing” for the country — up from about 64% just a year ago, and a record high point for the last 25 years.
Even among Republicans, positivity about immigration rose dramatically in the last year, from just 39% saying it was “a good thing” last year — to 64% today.
Only about 2 in 10 U.S. adults said immigration was a bad thing, down from 32% last year, and the share who want immigration “decreased” dropped from 55% to 30%. The poll also showed decreasing support for the Trump administration’s mass deportations.
Young indigenous kayakers made a historic river journey after the ‘largest dam removal in US history’
For decades, Native people called for the removal of dams and the restoration of the Klamath River near the border of Oregon and California. Finally, four dams and three reservoirs were removed last year in the world’s largest dam removal project.
Leading up to the dam removal, Ríos to Rivers’ Paddle Tribal Waters project had been helping Native youth reconnect to the ancient river — teaching them to whitewater raft so that Native people would be the first to journey down the newly restored river.
And that historic journey is now complete: Youth from the Yurok, Klamath, Hoopa Valley, Karuk, and other tribes paddled 310 miles over a month from a Klamath River tributary to the Pacific Ocean.
Why is this good news? The Klamath River is a source of deep cultural significance for the Native tribes living in its basin, who see it as a living person they depend on and protect. Once the third-largest salmon-producing fish on the West Coast, before the dams, it also provided them with an abundance of food.
Following budget cuts and layoffs, national park rangers host a bake sale to take on $1.2 billion deficit
People diagnosed with dementia are living longer than ever
Thanks to advancements in early detection and improvements in treatment and customized care, the life expectancy for people with dementia is longer than ever.
A new study analyzed data on more than 1.2 million people living with dementia globally. It found that in five of the eight regions studied, representing 84% of test subjects, people diagnosed with dementia have a lower risk of premature death.
Not only is this data good news for families of loved ones with a dementia diagnosis, both in planning for their care and in enjoying more time with them, but it helps doctors and policymakers develop better treatment plans and health care policies.
France built a new bike and pedestrian crossing off the side of an old railroad bridge
Connecting the car-free city center of Albi, France, to a new development across a river is a stunning new bike and pedestrian crossing that repurposes an old railway bridge.
Rather than creating entirely new infrastructure for the crossing, architects attached it to a viaduct that’s still in use by trains today.
Previously, people were only able to get to the other side of the river via a narrow, car-filled bridge located further down the river.
Why is this good news? Creating communities that work better for people doesn’t mean starting from scratch. Creatively using existing infrastructure to make it better and more functional for human beings — not cars — can be our default.
Buy one, get one: This realtor offers a free shelter dog with every home sold
There were fewer boating deaths in the U.S. last year than in more than five decades
The U.S. Coast Guard announced that in 2024, there were 556 boating-related deaths in the U.S., down 1.4% from 2023 and fewer than any year in more than five decades.
The leading causes of the fatalities were operator error, boaters improperly trained on the rules of water safety, and alcohol.
Before the Safe Boating Act was enacted in 1971, the number of boating deaths was 20.6 per 100,000 registered vessels. Last year, that number was 4.8 per 100,000 — demonstrating how the improved safety measures have been instrumental in saving lives.
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Switzerland just launched the world’s first solar power plant on active railways
A pilot solar power project in Switzerland is making use of the unused space between railway tracks by installing solar panels to collect solar power — even with trains using them.
The initial project involves deploying 48 panels on 100 meters of active railway. It will have a capacity of around 18 kilowatts and is expected to produce 16,000 kilowatt-hours per year.
Ultimately, the solar tech startup behind the project wants to “produce energy between the rails and re-inject it into the traction current of the trains so that it is practically 100% self-propelled.”
Even better: The company’s initial proposal was rejected back in 2023, and it’s since addressed safety concerns and made other improvements, like installing cleaning brushes on trains to remove dust and debris as they pass over the panels. The panels are also removable to make track maintenance easier.
TikToker pays migrant day laborers to join him at a waterpark for the day — and his followers gave them $20K more
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Every year, 230,000 babies are protected from HIV thanks to treatments reducing mother-to-child transmission
A decade ago, over 500,000 families had a baby contract HIV — most of those infections passed from mothers who had HIV themselves. Now, that number has dropped to 130,000 families.
The introduction of anti-retroviral drugs and other treatments have led to this dramatic decline. When a mother takes ART during pregnancy, it dramatically lowers the risk of passing on HIV — and sometimes, giving it to the baby within the first few weeks of life helps, too.
Thanks to these improved treatments — and ensuring they’re accessible to those who need it, like mothers with HIV, through programs like PEPFAR — almost a quarter of a million HIV cases in babies have been averted every year.
More good news of the week —
A U.K. court upheld a Cayman Islands law legalizing same-sex partnerships. In the original case, the Cayman Islands’ courts ultimately ruled that the right to marry extended only to opposite-sex couples, but that same-sex couples were entitled to legal protection “which is functionally equivalent to marriage.”
Amid U.S. Forest Service funding cuts, volunteer hikers are helping care for their beloved trails. The Spokane Mountaineers is just one group cleaning up and building trails all over the Inland Northwest. Its members are walking slowly and picking up trash, digging trenches to reroute water, and cutting fallen trees.
The Pittsburgh City Council unanimously passed three bills extending protections for LGBTQ+ residents. Two of the bills were designed to de-emphasize the enforcement of any future law restricting the LGBTQ+ community from participating in otherwise legal activities and create avenues for reporting medical discrimination.
Drones are helping clean up Mount Everest’s trash-covered slopes in record time. The drones are part of a growing effort to clean the slopes of the mountain, not only speeding up the process but also reducing the danger for the Sherpas carrying decades worth of garbage down the treacherous peak.
New Jersey passed a new law that will expand free preschool and full-day kindergarten statewide by 2030. Among other things, the legislation establishes a three-year preschool cost-sharing pilot program, a committee to guide preschool expansion, and requires the state’s Education Department to provide annual expansion grants.
A study found that smartphone bans in schools in the Netherlands have improved learning. A survey of more than 300 secondary school leaders reported that children found it easier to concentrate, the social environment and interactions between students were better, and some said results had improved.
Gisele Pelicot, whose landmark case led to reforms in France’s rape laws, was awarded the country’s highest civilian honor. Pelicot gained recognition and admiration as a symbol of women’s rights in France — and all over the world — after she courageously testified publicly about the decade-long sexual abuse she endured from her ex-husband and strangers.
An underwater turbine that has been spinning for 6 years off Scotland’s coast is a breakthrough for tidal energy. Keeping a large, or grid-scale, turbine in place in the harsh sea environment for that long is a record that helps pave the way for bigger tidal energy farms and makes the technology more appealing to investors.
Bosses in the UK will be banned from using NDAs to silence employees and cover up misconduct at work. The government’s overhaul of workers’ rights will create one of the toughest protection regimes in the world, giving millions of workers, including those in low-paid jobs, more confidence that inappropriate behaviour like discrimination and harassment in the workplace will be dealt with.
An Indian American teen created an AI-powered app to help protect elderly individuals from online scams. Tejasvi Mano was inspired to create the app after her 85-year-old grandfather was nearly the victim of an online phishing scam, seeing it as the younger generations’ duty to help older generations navigate the digital world.
Record volumes of solar power generation helped stabilize Europe’s grids through a recent heatwave. In the peak days of the heatwave, solar delivered up to 50 GW of power in Germany alone, generating more than one-third of the country’s electricity, and its 14 GW of battery storage and 10 GW of pumped storage stored some solar to use after sunset.
Ozzy Osbourne collaborated with chimpanzees on abstract expressionist painting to raise funds for an ape sanctuary in Florida. Osbourne paints for peace of mind, and while he doesn’t usually sell them, he made an exception to raise funds for Save the Chimps, a sanctuary for chimpanzees who have been rescued from animal testing labs, poorly run zoos, and wildlife traffickers.
Related: Osbourne’s farewell concert on July 5 raised $190 million for charity
Community-based volunteer patrolling efforts in Brazil’s Amazon reduced environmental crimes by 80% in a decade. The study also found there was no clear decline in environmental violations detected by government-led operations outside those protected areas, suggesting that community-based patrols were more effective.
Thanks to the canine companion in the “Superman” film, interest in dog adoption has skyrocketed 500%. Krypto is a key character in the latest “Superman” installment, and while he’s created with CGI for the film, he was inspired by the director’s own rescue dog, Ozu.
The founder of the Miami Tropical Botanical Garden raised enough funding to save the property from development. Private investors stepped in to help Casey Zap raise the money to purchase the land that holds the lush three-acre garden, saving it from being turned into a high-rise or retail development and preserving it within the Little Haiti community.
A Ukrainian doctor drove a child’s heart through a Russian attack to perform a life-saving transplant. As the Ukrainian authorities called on people to hide in bomb shelters and basements amid intensifying attacks, the doctor made a 10-mile drive across Kyiv while missiles and drones were flying around.
MIT engineers developed a new type of bionic knee that can help people with above-the-knee amputations. It’s directly integrated with the user’s muscle and bone tissue, and can help people with above-the-knee amputations walk faster, climb stairs, and avoid obstacles more easily than they could with a traditional prosthesis.
Boston opened a new park honoring a Black transgender woman who was murdered near the area in 1998. The Rita Hester Green is a “joyful, inclusive space made for connection and year-round fun, featuring a dog park, flexible event lawn, quiet corners, and playful natural buffers,” the landscape design firm said.
New legislation in Missouri bans the state from seizing foster children’s benefits to cover the cost of foster care. Previously, over 1,200 foster children's benefits, totaling over $10.6 million, were used to fund their care. The bill also bans child marriage and stops child sex abusers from using non-disclosure agreements to silence their victims.
YouTube is no longer paying creators for AI-generated videos, focusing monetization on “original” and “authentic” content. The new policy draws a hard line around what counts as monetizable content, and anything that relies too heavily on automation for “easy money” is getting cut off from ad revenue.
