Latest Stories
For a Dramatic Covid Recovery, Doctors Prescribe Opera Lessons
The English National Opera has partnered with a hospital to turn lung recovery exercises into song.
California’s Farm Worker Dwellings Get an Upgrade
When a newly elected county supervisor saw where farm workers were living, he was appalled — and inspired.
The NFL Team That Covid Couldn’t Touch
How the Seahawks finished the season as the only team in the league without a single infection.
Indigenous Tribes Are Unearthing Traditional Crops
A seed banking cooperative is making sure age-old agricultural practices don’t get lost.
Addiction Treatment RVs Hit the Road in Colorado
Journeying to the state’s remote mountain hamlets, these mobile clinics are taking house calls to new heights.
Four-Day Work Weeks Are Here to Stay
Some companies that reduced employee hours during the pandemic are keeping the shorter work week in place — even as they reinstate full pay.
Alaska’s Vaccine Rollout Is an Inspiration
Defying harsh weather and roadless terrain, America’s most undeveloped state has achieved one of the country’s highest vaccination rates.
The Country That Invites New Immigrants to Dinner
To fight xenophobia, nearly 2,000 families have shared a meal. Many have come back for more.
A New Kind of Housing for Homeless Indigenous People
An 80-unit complex in Seattle will provide housing that reflects the culture of the Coast Salish People.
Get Your Freedges Freebies Here!
Community refrigerators are showing up on city streets, full stocked with food that’s free for the taking. Care for a snack?
When Life Gives You Milk, Make Cheese
Large dairy farms started dumping their milk during Covid — until smaller ones swooped in to turn it into food for the hungry.
Lisbon Is Turning Empty Airbnb Apartments into Affordable Housing
With tourism at a standstill, the city is leasing the flats and subletting them to locals.
Food Banks Get on Board With Fast, Free Delivery
To reach those in need who don’t want to visit in person, one food bank is embracing Amazon-style shipping.
How Norway Helped Syria Rescue Its Seeds
When war broke out, a group of intrepid scientists hustled Syria’s chickpea and lentil stash to a vault deep in the Arctic Circle.
The City That Guarantees the Right to Eat
Defining access to food as a human right, a city in Brazil is making sure everyone can afford a trip to the market.
California Is Cultivating Forests That Stand Up to Wildfires
The key is forest management processes that mimic what nature would do.
Conservation Comes to Hawaii’s Rain-Triggering Tropical Forests
Private landowners are part of a statewide push to save the trees that make it rain.
Cleveland Is Taking Its Voter Registration Drive Literally
Registration caravans on wheels are making sure Latino communities don’t get missed.
Guides for Life After a Life Sentence
“Lifers” face a daunting re-entry after decades in prison. One California program recruits their formerly incarcerated peers to help them navigate.
Bogota Cyclists Are Getting Much More Than Just Bike Lanes
From bicycle parking spaces to a citywide registry for stolen bikes, the Colombian capital is creating a full-fledged cycling ecosystem.
The Tiny Town With Its Own Currency
A Depression-era form of relief is helping residents of Tenino, Washington through the crisis.
Vocabulary ‘Fitbits’ Are Changing How Babies Learn Words
The devices could help close the language gap between kids from wealthy and low-income families.
Nuns Convince Wall Street to Create $130 Million Climate Change Fund
Sixteen congregations of Dominican nuns are collaborating with Morgan Stanley to invest in marginalized communities impacted by global warming.
Lesotho’s Top-Flight Soccer Team Just Broke the Glass Ceiling
The African nation’s Premier League football club will become the first in the world to fund its men’s and women’s teams equally.
How to Make a Billion Tons of Carbon Dioxide Disappear
New research shows that sprinkling rock dust on fields where crops are grown could have a huge effect.
The Deep-Red City that Elected a Trans Woman
“When folks say, ‘I cannot believe a trans person could win in a place like West Virginia,’ I think, ‘This is the very place I believe a trans person could win elected office.”
Kentucky’s Abandoned Coal Mines Are Elk Heaven
The remnants of a destructive form of mining have inadvertently helped the elk return to coal country for the first time since the Civil War.
Protesters Are Showing What Policing Could Look Like
At a police-free zone in Seattle, “sentinels” are keeping the peace in peaceful fashion.
Seattle’s Tiny Houses Keep the Virus Out
Shelters and hotel rooms are expensive and temporary. Are tiny houses a homelessness solution that can outlast the crisis?
What Police Budgets Are Being Spent on Now
Minneapolis isn’t the only city starting to redirect the funding it spends on law enforcement.
An Antidote to Violence
Some advocates, seeing violence as an epidemic, are starting to treat it like one.
Muslims and Christians Are Sharing Space
So that everyone can worship safely, the walls that separate churches and mosques are coming down.
France to Airlines: Go Green If You Want a Bailout
How one country is using its economic rescue to clean up a polluting industry.
The Kaleidoscopic Community of a Coronavirus Hotel
Masked chambermaids, sanitized keycards and nurses who pop in to see how you’re feeling.
Seeing the Forest for the Bees
In this week’s briefing: Reviving a woodland refuge for honeybees and partnering with poachers to bring back buffalo to a national park.
Infrastructure that Helps Wildlife Migrate
In this week’s briefing: building bridges to assist wildlife on their journeys, Italy gets homeschooled and a debate over the merits of poop-powered energy.
China’s Green Decade Impacts the Whole World
In this week’s news briefing: renewable energy has an undisputed leader, and anti-violence outreach workers help their at-risk clients shelter in place.
New Zealand May Completely Eliminate the Coronavirus
In this week’s briefing: Kiwis crush the curve, a Brazilian school exceeds all expectations and transit projects leverage car-free streets to hurry forward.
Scuba Tours Are Planting Coral Instead
In this week’s briefing: Australian tour operators repair the Great Barrier Reef and a city keeps its restaurants afloat by hiring them to cook for the homeless.
France’s High-Speed Hospital
In this week’s news briefing: Governments help companies pay their workers, France uses its bullet train for high-speed triage and Indigenous graduation rates soar.
Can Facebook Predict Coronavirus Spikes?
In this week’s news briefing: social media data is tracking COVID-19 and schools begin to open with anti-viral measures in place.
Coronavirus Help Is Everywhere
American bartenders get a lifeline, French perfumers churn out hand sanitizer, Britain grows a volunteer army and locked-down Chinese students find classmates in Israel.
A Balm to Heal Strip-Mined Mountaintops
In this week’s news briefing: the strafed summits of Kentucky find a grizzled savior and an underground turbine keeps the lights on in Halifax.
The DIY Wheelchair Ramp
In this week’s news briefing: a device that turns impassable into accessible, a preschool wrapped in a bus and free legal help for tenants facing eviction.
Growing Pot with Beer Bubbles
In this week’s news briefing: Brewery emissions find a higher purpose and transit-oriented soccer fields sprout in Atlanta.
This Apple Computer Stops Food from Spoiling
In this week’s news briefing: a device to prevent rotting produce, gay rights advance in Virginia and Japan makes a science of lost-and-found.
A Proven Way to Change Voters’ Minds
In this week’s news briefing: empathy-based political canvassing, old seeds grown anew and pavement that lets the water in.
The Pack Is Back
In this week’s news briefing: The triumphant return of wolves to Yellowstone National Park, and a company dispatches teenagers to help seniors with their iPads.
Why Australia Is Lighting New Bush Fires
In this week’s news briefing: a millennia-old approach to controlling Australia’s wildfires, and a city in Illinois gets to know its homeless.
A More Sensitive Supermarket
In this week’s news briefing: simulating disability in a retail environment, turning down take-away plastics and tidying up the ocean floor.
Uber’s Ambulance Service
In this week’s news briefing: Medicaid picks up the tab for ride-hailing to the doctor, and wind farms sprout from Fukushima’s abandoned farmland.
Crushed by negative news?
Sign up for the Reasons to be Cheerful newsletter.