At the end of this busy year, Reasons to be Cheerful’s editors are taking a moment to reflect.

The Games have become an unwieldy, budget-busting affair. Allowing multiple cities — or even countries — to co-host could fix that.

How a rule-breaking joyride by an MTV icon helped make Norway the world’s EV capital.

The pandemic has finally busted the outdated myth that so-called developing countries are less resilient than their wealthier peers.

The Bay Area is walking back a proposal that would have forced residents to work remotely.

After we featured a list of places beating the coronavirus, many of you wrote in with your own countries’ success stories. Here are five you said we shouldn’t miss.

While success stories like Germany and South Korea are rightly hailed, some of the most effective responses are in countries that haven’t been making the news.

Benches that become stoves and manholes hiding emergency toilets reflect the survival instincts of a country that has learned to live with peril.

Taiwan has built a pragmatic, solutions-oriented society where democracy is expected to deliver results. Amid the pandemic, it’s paying off.

Satellites are tracking thousands of fishing vessels in real time to make sure your mahi mahi is just as sustainably sourced as the label claims.

A landmark deal to let China build Boston’s new subway cars shows how a little creative collaboration could rescue America’s infrastructure.

From transgender clinics to big wins in the fight against HIV, the landscape for LGBT health is nearly unrecognizable from just 10 years ago.

The toilets in your home today are radically different than the ones of the 1950s—or even the 1990s—and may be the reason western cities are still habitable.

While other European countries cut their budgets to the bone, Portugal lent its citizens a helping hand. Guess who came out on top.

Pontevedra, once choked with cars, is a laboratory for how smaller cities can implement a few simple tricks to reduce driving dramatically.

Major cities have signaled a commitment to curbing private autonomous vehicles, and their transportation systems are already reaping the benefits.

Before they became places to warehouse so-called problem kids, alternative learning centers were designed to help at-risk students succeed. Some are rediscovering that mission.

To change the misperception that scientists are all old white guys in lab coats, thousands of women scientists are banding together to make their voices heard.

In clinics and hospitals around the world, doctors and nurses turn household objects into medical instruments. MIT’s Little Devices Lab is giving them the tools to build even better.

All those pictures of smog-cloaked Chinese cities mask the fact that China’s cheap solar panels have fueled the world’s green-energy revolution.