United States

This archive collects solutions-journalism stories and milestones from the United States — covering policy wins, community-led efforts, scientific advances, and social progress happening across the country. Each entry highlights what’s working and why it matters.

Furnace flames

Massachusetts becomes first U.S. state to approve phase-out of natural gas as a source for residential heating

By / / Good news links

According to Inside Climate News, Massachusetts is the first state to take such a clear step to phase out natural gas, but it likely won’t be the last. At least 11 other states, including California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington — as well as Washington, D.C. — have ongoing regulatory cases that are exploring the future of natural gas.

Pills spilling out of pill bottle, for article on march-in rights policy

U.S. sets policy to seize patents of government-funded drugs if price deemed too high

By / / Good News For Humankind

Drug patent seizures are back on the table for the first time in over 40 years, with the Biden administration releasing a draft roadmap that explicitly lets the federal government license out medicines to competitors when companies charge prices most Americans can’t afford. The power has existed since 1980 but was never used or even defined — until now. Price itself is now a factor: if a drug was built on taxpayer-funded research through agencies like the NIH, and the company sells it out of reach of ordinary patients, generics could be authorized. Even as a credible threat, this reframes who publicly funded science is really for — and could shift drug pricing fights well beyond U.S. borders.

Ford E-Transit, for article on wireless EV charging roadway

Detroit becomes first city in the U.S. to install wireless-charging roadway

By / / Good News For Humankind

Wireless EV charging just made its U.S. public-road debut on a quarter-mile stretch of 14th Street in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood. Copper coils embedded beneath the pavement send electricity through a magnetic field to receivers mounted under compatible vehicles, topping up batteries with no plug, no stop, and no waiting. A Ford E-Transit van will gather real-world data over a five-year pilot, with city buses and delivery fleets as especially promising candidates down the road. There’s a lovely symmetry in the city that birthed the auto industry helping reimagine how cars are powered — and a reminder that the shift to clean transportation tends to begin with exactly these kinds of modest, hopeful experiments.

Small airplane, for article on sustainable aviation fuel

Gulfstream completes first-ever transatlantic flight with 100% Sustainable Aviation Fuel

By / / Good News For Humankind

Sustainable aviation fuel just crossed the Atlantic on its own, with no fossil jet fuel in the tank. A Gulfstream G600 flew from Savannah, Georgia to Farnborough, England in under seven hours, becoming the first aircraft to make the transatlantic journey on 100% SAF. The engines weren’t modified for the trip, hinting that existing planes could one day run on cleaner fuel without expensive retrofits. Gulfstream now plans to share the flight data with U.S. regulators to help certify full SAF use beyond today’s blended limits. For an industry where battery and hydrogen flight remain distant, this single crossing offers something rare: a glimpse of long-haul aviation that could actually clean up before 2050.

Car engine

New Jersey to ban sales of gas-powered cars by 2035

By / / Good news links

Under the state Department of Environmental Protection’s “Advanced Clean Cars II” rule, manufacturers must ensure that 43% of new light-duty vehicles they make in 2027 are electric, with the percentage rising annually to 100% by 2035. Most consumer cars and pickup trucks are considered light-duty.

Aerial view of Northwestern University campus, for article on prison education program

For the first time, U.S. prisoners graduate from top university

By / / Good News For Humankind

Prison education just crossed a remarkable threshold: sixteen men at Stateville Correctional Center in Illinois became the first incarcerated students in the U.S. to earn bachelor’s degrees from a top-ten ranked university. Northwestern’s program now enrolls around 100 students across two facilities, including a women’s prison, with graduates already planning law school and youth-focused nonprofits. One graduate’s mother, who hadn’t seen her son in nearly two decades, watched him walk across the stage in cap and gown. With Pell Grants finally restored to incarcerated students after a nearly thirty-year ban, this ceremony hints at what’s possible when elite institutions treat people behind bars as full participants in higher learning — a shift that could ripple through prisons and universities alike.

Aerial view of facility, for article on direct air capture

Heirloom Carbon Technologies opens first carbon capture facility in the U.S.

By / / Good News For Humankind

Direct air capture has gone commercial in the United States for the first time, with Heirloom Carbon Technologies opening a plant in Tracy, California that can pull 1,000 metric tons of CO2 straight from the sky each year. The company speeds up a natural process: heating limestone, then letting the mineral soak up atmospheric carbon on open-air trays in days rather than years. The captured CO2 is locked into concrete and stored underground, with companies like Microsoft and Shopify buying removal credits to fund operations. Heirloom went from capturing one kilogram to one million kilograms in just over two years, and hopes to keep copying the design. Tackling legacy emissions, not just new ones, may be essential to stabilizing the climate worldwide.

Human eye, for article on whole-eye transplant

New York surgeons perform world’s first successful eyeball transplant

By / / Good News For Humankind

Whole-eye transplant surgery has been performed successfully for the first time, with a team at NYU Langone Health spending more than 20 hours combining a donor eyeball, a partial face transplant, and a stem cell infusion into the optic nerve. The patient, Aaron James, lost much of his face in a 2021 electrical accident, and surgeons had carefully preserved his optic nerve in anticipation of exactly this kind of operation. Doctors say the transplanted eye is healthy and blood is flowing to the retina, though James has not regained sight. Restoring vision may still be years away, but this opens a real door for people with catastrophic eye injuries — proof that something once considered impossible is now a starting point.