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 —
Researchers made a “huge breakthrough” in treating advanced breast cancer, doubling survival time
Using a new three-drug combination, researchers hailed a “huge breakthrough” in treating aggressive, advanced breast cancer that could potentially double the amount of time patients live without the disease progressing.
In a study that included 325 patients from across 28 countries, the patients who received the new therapy saw delayed progression by 15 months, as opposed to 7.3 months.
Additionally, nearly half of those who received the three-drug therapy continued to show no signs of progression after 18 months of treatment.
Why is this good news? While the survival rate when it’s caught early on continues to improve, better, life-saving treatment options are still needed for those who get a breast cancer diagnosis later on (for any number of reasons, including lack of access to routine, preventative health care) and discover more advanced breast cancer.
A South Florida man is rescuing homeless dogs in “Dead Dog Alley”
Every day, Eddy Alvarez drives a 30-mile loop through farmlands in South Miami-Dade County looking for hungry, abandoned dogs to feed.
Heartbreakingly, the area is well-known for people abandoning their dogs there — it’s also, tragically, where many of them are killed when they’re struck by cars.
Not only does Alvarez try to get as many of these dogs as he can something to eat — he feeds about 20-25 per day, seven days a week — he also helps make them more comfortable by deworming them, giving them their shots, boosters, and getting rid of their fleas.
He helps them get help from a veterinarian if needed, too.
Ultimately, Alvarez does all this for a single purpose: to help them find a home. His nonprofit, Eddy’s Dogs, is “committed to the rescue and placement of unwanted or abandoned animals.”
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Helping remove a major barrier to voting, Lyft and Uber are offering 50% off rides to polling locations on Election Day
Many things can impact voter turnout in an election — things like disillusionment are tricker to overcome, but barriers like lack of transportation are more easily addressed.
That’s what rideshare apps Lyft and Uber are trying to do — offering riders a 50% discount of up to $10 on Election Day as part of their respective voting access programs. Lyft even added confetti to its app experience when code VOTE24 is applied — because participating in democracy is indeed a celebration.
Earlier this year, Lyft also announced a partnership with the NAACP to help improve access to transportation for Black voters, who have a long history of their voting rights being restricted.
Why is this good news? A one-mile increase in distance to a polling location can reduce turnout by up to 20%. Places like Texas and Georgia have some of the longest distances to voting sites (5.8 and 5.6 miles), while Rhode Island and New Hampshire have the shortest (2.8 and 3 miles) — lack of transportation is an unnecessary barrier to voting, and this initiative will help positively impact voter turnout.
A new art exhibit invites people to talk politics at the dinner table: ‘If we can’t speak to each other, I don’t know how we have a democracy’
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Now offered in nearly all states, early voting options have expanded significantly in the last 24 years
In 2000, just 24 states offered options to vote before Election Day — fast forward to 2024, and 47 states and Washington D.C. now have early voting options available.
That expansion equates to nearly 97% of all voting-age citizens now living in a state that offers at least one option to vote before Election Day, like early in-person voting or mail-in ballots.
Notably, a remarkable 36 states and Washington D.C. also offer voters the option to vote by mail without needing to provide a reason.
More options to vote early in more states means shorter lines on Election Day, flexibility to vote around childcare and work schedules, election integrity is bolstered, and more — which all contributes to greater voter turnout and confidence.
Sarah McBride became the first openly transgender person elected to U.S. Congress
Winning the state’s only House seat, Sarah McBride made history as the first openly transgender person to be elected to U.S. Congress. McBride’s campaign focused on expanding access to affordable health care, protecting reproductive rights, and raising the minimum wage.
McBride served two terms as a state senator in Delaware, helping pass universal paid family and medical leave. In Congress, she says she wants to work with colleagues to break through the partisan gridlock and actually pass legislation.
In a victory speech, McBride said it was a testament to voters judging candidates “based on their ideas and not their identities.”
She also said, “Hope as an emotion, hope as a phenomenon, only makes sense in the face of hardship. While at this moment in America’s history, hope sometimes feels hard to come by, we must never forget that we are the beneficiaries of seemingly impossible change.”
Why is this good news? Until now, law-making around trans rights has been done largely without representation from the trans community at the table. Sarah’s perspective and commitment to representing her community is an important win for democracy.
In a historic conservation victory, a cloned black-footed ferret gave birth for the first time
Once thought to be extinct, the highly endangered black-footed ferrets are the only ferret native to North America, and they’re making a comeback, thanks to the tireless efforts of conservationists.
One of those efforts has been genetic cloning, a tactic to preserve the health of species since all living black-footed ferrets come from just seven wild-caught descendants.
And they just had a breakthrough: a black-footed ferret cloned from the DNA of a ferret that lived in the 1980s has successfully birthed two healthy kits of her own, the first successful live births from a cloned endangered species.
What’s the nuance? While we said we’d stay away from politics for this one, it’s important to note that initiatives to protect and conserve endangered species are impacted by local, state, and federal policies — we need to ensure conservation initiatives to protect nature, animals (and ultimately, all of us) can continue.
Voters in California, Colorado, and Hawaii passed measures to secure protections for same-sex marriage
On Election Day, California voters passed Proposition 3, which guarantees the right for same-sex and interracial couples to get married by removing language in the state constitution that defines marriage as between a man and woman.
Similarly, Colorado voters passed Amendment J, which repealed a ban on same-sex unions.
And in Hawaii, voters passed a measure to amend the state constitution and repeal the legislature’s authority to “reserve marriage to opposite-sex couples.”
Why is this good news? While same-sex marriages became legal at the federal level in 2015 with the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision, there are growing concerns that an effort similar to the one that overturned Roe v. Wade could happen to the legality of same-sex marriage.
Voters in these three states proactively got state laws protecting it on the books.
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After 54 years, the Texas woodpecker is no longer endangered
Following a decades-long conservation effort (which we know are often highly successful), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has officially reclassified the red-cockaded woodpecker as a “threatened” species.
Bringing it back from the brink of extinction, “decades of collaborative efforts from a coalition of partners” are to thank for the woodpecker no longer being endangered.
The only woodpecker in North America that constructs cavities in living pine trees, the forest service said many of the woodpecker populations are either stable or increasing.
It was first classified as endangered in 1970, when its population shrank to fewer than 10,000 individuals in 1,470 family groups.
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Following a community-led initiative, a city in Montana voted to ban single-use plastic bags
On Election Day, more than 14,000 residents of Bozeman, Montana voted to ban the use of single-use plastic bags and Styrofoam packaging in the city.
Though the initiative faced difficulties getting on the ballot, it ended up seeing widespread bipartisan support, with 63% of voters in favor of the measure. It’s set to go into effect in May 2025.
Unlike similar measures that are put forth by local governments, Bozeman’s was completely community-led and avoids loopholes like the ability to purchase plastic bags at checkout or distribute “reusable” thicker plastic bags.
Why is this good news? Bozeman sets an example for other cities in Montana that have considered similar bans, as well as cities around the country. It’s also an example of how grassroots, community-led organizing can make a really big difference!
→ Read more
More good news of the week —
New U.S. rules now require airlines to automatically refund passengers when their flights are canceled. Implemented just ahead of a busy holiday travel season, the DOT requires refunds, not vouchers when a passenger’s flight is canceled or “significantly delayed” — even if it’s not explicitly requested.
After it was found stranded 5,000 miles away, one of the world's most endangered turtles was returned home. The young Kemp’s ridley sea turtle was found entangled in a net off the coast of the Netherlands — was treated for minor injuries at a zoo, and has now fully recovered.
Since Ireland launched its first bottle return program in February, 630 million empty cans and plastic bottles have been returned. The program, the biggest behavioral shift since the country implemented its plastic bag tax in 2001, is part of a bid to meet EU 90% recycling targets.
A North Carolina state senate candidate is running a race she’s guaranteed to lose to raise awareness about gerrymandering. Kate Barr was “gerrymandered out of a chance” — so she’s running her campaign on the promise that she won’t win to help people learn about the impacts of gerrymandering.
Launching in 2017, Minnesota’s “Civility Caucus” is bridging partisan divides and bringing members of the state legislature together. By getting to know members of the “other side” as people, rather than as presumed adversaries, more effective, bipartisan legislation gets done.
After its 18-day early voting period, a record-breaking 55.3% of Georgia voters had already cast their ballot. It was the “most successful” early vote in state history, with more than 4 million ballots cast “because voters trust the process.”
Thanks to Olympian Allyson Felix, parents across the U.S. can get free child care to vote on Election Day. Lack of access to childcare, especially for Black parents in underresourced communities, is a major barrier to voting for many people.
After her late husband told her women shouldn’t vote, an 81-year-old Georgia widow voted for the first time ever. After he passed away in 2023, Betty Cartledge realized that it wasn’t too late to exercise her right to vote.
TikTok users went “undercover” in swing states to convince their dating app matches to vote. Two content creators hosted an event in Los Angeles called “Make Dating Apps Useful Again,” where they trained other volunteers to start conversations about voting.
A Native elections worker in Arizona is helping clear voting obstacles for remote and Indigenous communities. Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly is the first Indigenous person to hold a countywide seat.
Using lunch drives and free doughnuts, high school students are making sure more of their classmates vote. With 8 million teens eligible to vote this year, New Voters helps high schoolers host voter registration drives to make sure more of them do.
Jane Goodall joined a viral TikTok account to encourage young people to prioritize nature with their vote. “Subway Takes” is a TikTok series, hosted by artist and comedian Kareem Rahma, in which he asks fellow New Yorkers what their “hot takes” are while riding on the subway.
Winning his race in New Jersey, Andy Kim became the first Korean American elected to the U.S. Senate. You may recognize Kim’s name from the photographs of him with a trash bag in hand, cleaning up after the pro-Trump mob breached the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021.
Missouri voters passed a ballot measure to protect reproductive rights in the state constitution. The amendment establishes “a fundamental right to reproductive freedom,” defined as the right “to make and carry out decisions about all matters relating to reproductive health care.”
For the first time in history, two Black women will serve in the U.S. Senate. Two years ago, the U.S. Senate did not have a single Black woman, and before that, only two Black women had ever served in the upper chamber of Congress — a key demographic missing from representation in law-making decisions.
Dubbed the state’s “Equal Rights Amendment,” New York voters passed Proposition 1. The state’s constitution will now also protect against unequal treatment based on “ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, and pregnancy outcomes, as well as reproductive healthcare and autonomy.”
Texas voters rejected a proposal that would have made it illegal to use streets and highways to travel out of state for an abortion. Amarillo became the first Texas city to reject an anti-abortion ordinance placed on a citywide ballot.
California voters approved a $10 billion bond to fund climate resilience, clean water, and prevent wildfires. At least 40% of the bond money must be spent in disadvantaged communities, which often have the fewest acres of parks, the most air pollution, and the largest numbers of people at risk from extreme heat and other weather events.
Capturing 84% of the vote, Bryce Berry will be the youngest member of the Georgia General Assembly in modern history. A former public school teacher, a cornerstone of Berry’s campaign was advocating for public school education, especially in predominantly Black neighborhoods.
In Texas, Julie Johnson made history as the first out LGBTQ+ person ever elected to Congress from the South. In her role as a state representative, Johnson helped stop anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and advocated for reproductive rights.
A significant step given the city’s history, Monroe Nichols was elected the first Black mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma. In 1921, Tulsa was the site of one of the most severe incidents of racial violence in U.S. history, the Tulsa Race Massacre, which left between 30 and 300 people dead, mostly Black residents.
Minnesota voters overwhelmingly approved the continued use of lottery funds to pay for conservation efforts for another 25 years. The original 1988 amendment established the state’s Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund and has funded more than 1,600 projects for more than $1 billion.
After being the first openly transgender elected official in state history, Aime Wichtendahl made history again as the first trans woman elected to the Iowa House. Her election is significant, coming after years of attacks in the Iowa legislature on the LGBTQ+ community, specifically trans people.
Keturah Herron made history as the first openly LGBTQ+ woman elected to the Kentucky State Senate. In her campaign, Herron was “a champion for racial justice, gun safety, and LGBTQ+ equality.”
Long Island voters overwhelmingly approved spending $6 billion to protect clean water and revitalize coastlines. This non-partisan decision marks a turning point in the decades-long effort to restore Long Island’s beaches, bays, and harbors.
Gabby Salinas became the first openly LGBTQ+ woman ever elected to the Tennessee state legislature. Salinas is an immigrant, three-time cancer survivor, and scientist who came to Memphis as a 7-year-old to receive cancer care at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Rashaun Kemp became the first out gay Black man elected to the Georgia State legislature. Kemp acknowledged the “profound historical weight” of his seat which was “once held by the first Black man to serve in our state senate… Every barrier broken paves the way for more progress.”
Montana voters supported a ballot initiative to protect reproductive rights in the state. The measure enshrines a 1999 court ruling that recognizes a constitutional right to privacy, which includes access to abortion before fetal viability and after viability to protect the life or health of the mother.
Thanks to an unusual partnership, 300 homes in New York got free batteries to help unlock more localized clean energy. Helping advance the state’s clean energy goals, the largest rooftop solar installer and a utility company gave households that signed up for solar a free battery pack or discounted Tesla Powerwall.
The DOT, FAA, and Delta Air Lines are working on plans to allow wheelchair users to fly in their own wheelchairs. It’s a long-sought goal of disabled travelers, who often experience mishandling and damage to their wheelchairs when they’re placed in cargo.
Scientists created a device that can inexpensively purify a gallon of water a day. The familiar “solar still” device is made of readily available old tires, can also generate small amounts of electricity, and could help people meet their basic water needs.
