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 —
A Texas church painted a rainbow on its front steps in protest of a state order to remove painted crosswalks
Oak Lawn United Methodist Church in Dallas painted its front steps in rainbow colors in response to a statewide order requiring cities to remove rainbow crosswalks from public streets.
The church decided to act following a rally in the Oak Lawn neighborhood, where residents were encouraged to display rainbows on private property as a form of peaceful protest. It wanted to let people know it was a place people “can come and find sanctuary.”
Why is this good news? While the LGBTQ+ community needs more support than rainbow-painted crosswalks, they are an important signal of representation and visibility, and that a community is welcoming and inclusive. Arguably, these church steps will be an even more powerful, visible welcome sign to passersby.
New study: Dungeons & Dragons is good for your brain — especially if you have a mental illness
After a catastrophic flood, a small Massachusetts town united to help a 99-year-old WWII veteran who lost everything
When a devastating flood destroyed the home that 99-year-old WWII veteran Leo Valente and his daughter Cheryl had shared for nearly 60 years, and insurance and the VA failed them, they turned to their community for help.
Cheryl explained their situation to a local news station, and neighbors rushed to the comments in a Facebook post to not only share their condolences, but to offer help in the form of monetary donations, furniture, and more.
At the time of publication, a GoFundMe in Leo’s name had raised $15,875 in six days, just short of their $18,000 goal, which will go towards temporary hotel fees and, later, a new apartment.
A new study shows that extinction rates have slowed across many plant and animal groups
Leading research that suggests the planet is currently experiencing another mass extinction is based on extrapolating extinctions from the past 500 years — but a new study found that extinctions in plants, arthropods, and land vertebrates actually peaked about 100 years ago and have declined since.
Their study found that past extinctions were mostly caused by invasive species on islands, whereas the most significant threat now is habitat destruction. Because of these differences, claims of a current mass extinction may be based on shaky assumptions.
According to their research, extinctions were most frequent among mollusks and vertebrates, but relatively rare among plants and arthropods. Most of them were species confined to isolated islands.
What’s the nuance? The researchers stressed that while it’s important to have this information to ensure accuracy in future protections, human activity is still a significant, urgent threat to many species: “Biodiversity loss is a huge problem right now, and I think we have not yet seen the kinds of effects that it might have.”
This viral Instagram fundraiser just raised $600K to feed 6 million people in need: ‘Hope still has helpers. That’s you.’
Sales of internal combustion engine cars in China peaked in 2017, and in the world in 2018
Electric cars have rapidly increased in popularity in China over the past several years. In 2020, one in 18 new cars sold was electric — in 2024, it was one in two.
But the real shift happened back in 2017, when sales of internal combustion engine cars — which run mostly on petrol or diesel fuel — peaked. Just one year later, combustion engine car sales peaked globally.
This shift is vital to decarbonizing transportation, and means that oil demand is expected to peak even earlier than the International Energy Agency initially predicted.
A conservation group is saving sea turtles off the coast of Nigeria, and rewarding fishermen who help them
The Greenfingers Wildlife Conservation Initiative in Lagos, Nigeria has saved and returned dozens of sea turtles back into the ocean in recent years, while educating the public about the importance of protecting them.
To fishermen in the area, “they are just food,” Greenfingers’ founder said, and there is a general lack of awareness about wildlife in the country, which is home to 23 critically endangered species.
Part of their success in saving turtles has come from working directly with fishermen, rewarding them with fishing gear if they alert conservationists to sea turtles caught in their nets, or if they come across a nest on shore.
Why is this good news? Sea turtles play a critical role in the marine ecosystem, and they are endangered around Lagos. While there are no official population figures, conservationists have reported an alarming decline in the number of sea turtle nests. Rescue and education efforts like these help protect those who do exist and help boost population growth.
You may also like: Florida’s leatherback sea turtles rebound to record high, following devastating hurricane season
Phoenix dumpling shop offers free SNAP lunches: ‘As a small business, this will hurt us, but we have to step up’
Amid ICE raids, Chicago cyclists buy out tamale carts and distribute food to people in need: ‘Go home and be safe’
As Immigration and Customs Enforcement continues its targeted crackdown in Chicago, at least three street vendors have been detained by agents, in addition to thousands of others with no proof of criminal history.
So, for the past month, cyclists with Cycling x Solidarity have been doing their part to support migrant workers who own and operate food stalls in the city.
This past weekend alone, more than 30 cyclists bought out six vendors on Saturday and three on Sunday. Their purchases resulted in a total of 250 burritos, gift bags, and drinks being distributed to others in need throughout the city.
French lawmakers approved legislation to define all nonconsensual sex as rape
For years, advocates have been pushing lawmakers in France to change the country’s definition of rape and sexual assault to outlaw nonconsensual acts.
Now, lawmakers have acted, approving a new law that states “any non-consensual act … constitutes sexual assault.” That consent must be “free and informed, specific, prior and revocable” and, perhaps most importantly, it cannot be inferred from “silence or lack of reaction.”
The demand for change found renewed urgency following last year’s trial of Gisèle Pelicot’s rapists, in which all 50 men and her husband were found guilty.
Why is this good news? Prior to the change, French law defined sexual assault, including rape, as acts performed through “violence, coercion, threat, or surprise,” which lawyers used to argue that the definition did not explicitly require seeking consent. This new law makes it abundantly clear what is required and will protect victims.
As SNAP benefits get cut off, livestreamers come together to ensure homeless families are fed this Thanksgiving
A pastor in Georgia declined $1 million in church donations and urged congregants to give to SNAP recipients instead
As the leader of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, Pastor Jamal Harrison Bryant leads weekly sermons on social justice and mutual aid. The church also gives away groceries to about 1,500 people every other Sunday, but Bryant expects the demand to increase as SNAP benefits dwindle.
Last Sunday was supposed to be a major fundraising day for the church, with an estimated $1 million in donations expected to be raised. Instead, Pastor Bryant put the event on hold, encouraging congregants to instead donate to people in immediate need or bring canned foods to the church for distribution.
He said, “The congregation is supposed to be sensitive to the needs of the community.”
Hundreds of homes across the country are competing to put on the best Halloween displays — they’ve raised nearly $1 million for St. Jude
Jeff Robertson admits he went “a little overboard” when decorating his house for Halloween in October 2020. His display was on the local news, and people traveled from all over the city to see it — and his family decided to use the attention for good.
So, Robertson started Skeletons for St. Jude — a campaign that encourages families across the United States to decorate their homes and raise awareness for children’s cancer research.
In the last five years, the cause has grown steadily from 400 homes in 2021 to 681 in 2024. This year, more than 1,000 were expected to participate, and the initiative has raised $977,792 since the fundraiser began in 2020.
Why is this good news? Participating in holidays like Halloween is even more fun when it’s a way to give back to others. Whether helping families access food or raising money for childhood cancer research, the things we already love, like going all-out for Halloween, can also be a force for good.
To help families losing SNAP benefits, people are handing out more than just candy this Halloween
More good news of the week —
Thanks to a coalition of anonymous donors, Muir Woods National Monument will reopen to the public for one week. The national park site is closed as a result of the government shutdown, but through Oct. 31, visitors won’t have to pay the monument’s $15 per person entrance fee — just for parking.
A new device helps people with hearing impairment still get restful sleep at night. When people take their hearing aids out before bed, anxiety can creep in about things they may not hear without them, leading to lower-quality sleep.
A “hopeful and imaginative” social housing project won this year’s prize for the UK’s best new building. The 57-unit building won the prize for setting an “ambitious standard for social housing among older people” and for acknowledging “two crises, an acute housing shortage and a growing loneliness epidemic among older people.”
An LA-based company created a solar device that can pull 1.5 liters of clean, drinkable water out of thin air every day. The device, called Spout, is made from recycled materials and does not require you to replace filters or anything that would add to your waste, and the company is working on new iterations that could store solar power so that the device can be used at night.
Extinct in the wild, an incredibly rare Spix’s macaw chick hatched at a European zoo, giving new hope for the species. The Spix’s macaw is a brilliantly blue parrot once native to the dry tropical forests of northeastern Brazil, but now only exists in captivity. It’s perhaps best known as the inspiration for the 2011 animated movie Rio.
A coffee shop in Portland is serving free SNAP breakfast “until everyone’s benefits are reinstated, or we go broke doing it.” And the coffee shop isn’t the only one helping — within 24 hours of its announcement, hundreds of people were already asking how they could help offset the cost, so they set up a fundraiser where people could make donations.
A year after an orphaned baby walrus was found traumatized on a remote Alaskan beach, she’s doing better than ever. When “Little Miss Walrus” arrived at the Alaska SeaLife Center in July 2024, she was barely more than one week old, and after months of rehabilitation, turned into a bubbly, curious walrus who developed a love for backflipping into the pool.
The largest African American quilt collection is now on display, preserving and rewriting history at a California museum. With 100 quilts from a 3,000-quilt donation on display, the exhibition explores how African American quiltmaking traditions migrated from the South to the West during the mid-20th century, carried by women whose textiles were both sources of warmth and acts of self-expression.
With a lack of community resilience centers, neighbors in Houston are creating solar-powered “hub homes.” A pilot program is creating emergency safe havens inside neighbors’ homes to prepare for extreme weather and power outages in response to decades of disinvestment and neglect.
Scientists repurposed plastic waste and coffee grounds into a carbon capture material. The technology is designed to achieve two major environmental goals: capture carbon dioxide from industrial emissions and manage growing amounts of waste by turning two common waste materials into a powerful CO2 absorbent.
The state of Minnesota announced it was giving $4 million in emergency funding to food banks across the state. More than 440,000 Minnesotans rely on SNAP, 38% are children, and 18% are seniors, so food shelves in the state are bracing for increased need — though the state’s governor said the funding is only “a bridge” to what’s really needed.
Pending good news: Colorado is hoping to do the same.
DoorDash announced it would deliver 1 million free meals through food banks and waive fees for thousands of grocery orders. The company is also donating food and essentials from its DashMart stores to local food banks in communities most impacted by the funding freeze, saying, “We know this is a stopgap, not a solution. But doing nothing simply isn’t an option.”
Private donors gave more than $125 million to keep foreign aid programs running after the Trump administration’s cuts. Project Resource Optimization identified 80 foreign aid projects to solicit help from private donors, and all of them are now funded, with more than $110 million mobilized in charitable grants and $15 million in other emergency funds.
Early voting turnout for New York City’s mayoral election is already five times higher than the 2021 general election. Data showed 164,190 voters cast ballots on the first weekend of early voting, more than doubling the first two days of early voting in June’s primary election, when 66,631 voters cast ballots.
Scientists developed a new RNA tool that will help improve cancer and infectious disease research and treatment. Their findings could help everything from accelerating disease research and enabling more precise diagnostics to guiding the development of more effective medical treatments for diseases such as cancer and antibiotic-resistant infections.
The Virgin Islands made history by allowing trans and intersex people to change their gender marker. The governor’s executive order is the first official recognition of trans people in the U.S. territory, and “ensures that our government recognizes and respects the lived realities of all our residents.”
A Denver woman is personally organizing grocery deliveries for her neighbors who may be impacted by SNAP cuts. Leslie Comstock lives in a mostly low-income apartment complex in downtown Denver, and of the 33 families who live there, she estimates about 90% rely on SNAP benefits.
A new copyright law will protect artists in Australia from AI data mining. The Albanese government officially ruled out a controversial exemption that would have allowed tech companies free rein to mine creative work to train AI models, a decision that was immediately praised as a "critical step in the right direction" by the creative sector.
The Maldives is now the first country to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of three deadly diseases. The “triple elimination” of HIV, syphilis, and hepatitis B is an unprecedented global benchmark, and the WHO recognition is a significant milestone in global public health efforts to end preventable infections among newborns.
Two seal pups rescued off the coast of Washington state were just released back into the ocean after rehabilitation. The Guadalupe fur seal pups, named after the unique Italian pasta shapes Campanelli and Orecchiette, were found severely emaciated and underweight, and received months of rehabilitation before release.
A beloved Mexican eatery in Nebraska is offering free “SNAPadillas” and setting up a makeshift food pantry. In the face of SNAP benefits ending on November 1, Muchacho’s is one of countless small businesses across the country opening its doors to people in need by offering a free meal.
Billie Eilish is donating $11.5 million from her world tour to causes supporting food equity, climate justice, and more. In her acceptance speech at the WSJ Innovator Awards, Eilish also challenged the ultra-rich to make impactful donations, too, saying, “No hate, but … give your money away.”
Illinois became the 13th U.S. state to pass a ‘Clean Slate’ law to automatically seal eligible arrest and conviction records. Opening doors to opportunity for 1.74 million people in the state, it’s part of a growing effort to ensure that outdated records don’t stand in the way of employment, housing, and stability for people “who have earned a second chance after being held accountable for a mistake.”
Learn more: Clean Slate Initiative aims to automatically clear records for 14 million
A nonprofit removed 300K landmines in Sri Lanka, allowing 280K people to return to their homes. Leftover from its civil war, the mines and unexploded bombs were cleared across an area 33% larger than the island of Manhattan, and their removal happened over the course of 16 years, allowing 120 square kilometers of land to be safe and usable again.
A Colorado nonprofit that saves food from being thrown away is now feeding hundreds of families ahead of SNAP benefits pause. We Don’t Waste recovers 100% of its food from grocery stores, restaurants, and other companies that would have otherwise thrown the products away.
Whether you’re walking around your neighborhood tonight, headed out with friends, or handing out candy at home, here’s some spooky-good good news to celebrate on Halloween!
🎃 The “little orange box” tradition has helped trick-or-treaters raise nearly $200 million over the last 75 years.
👻 Creating more opportunities for people to find their next furry family member, shelter pets are posing in donated Halloween costumes to dazzle potential adopters.
💀 After his brother died on Halloween, a haunted house owner almost quit — now he’s “scaring with a care” to benefit the USPS’s Operation Santa program.
🥧 Waste from pumpkins on Halloween creates a massive methane problem, but chefs and farmers are teaching people how to cook, compost, or donate their pumpkins to feed animals.
🩵 The Teal Pumpkin Project helps homes around the world make Halloween more inclusive for trick-or-treaters with food allergies.
🧛🏻 For the past nine years, a man in Texas has thrifted all year long to make and donate free Halloween costumes to help families facing increasing costume costs.
