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.
The renaming ceremony was the ninth — and final — among Army installations this year, capping a controversial three-year effort initiated by top Pentagon officials in 2020 amid a nationwide racial reckoning following the Memorial Day killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
New York is investing in a massive 6.4 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy, made up of three offshore wind farms and 22 onshore clean energy projects. It’s going to be enough to power 2.6 million New York homes and deliver around 12% of the state’s electricity needs once it’s all online.
The court’s decision requires Galveston County to redraw its 2021 map by October 20. The revised lines must include at least one district with a majority of Black and Latino people among the four districts that elect representatives to the county’s commissioners’ court.
Using data from 2002-2021, the Governors Highway Safety Association says that fatal crashes involving a young driver in the U.S. fell by 38%, while deaths of young drivers dropped even more, by about 45%.
A $3.46 billion federal investment is rewiring America’s electric grid, spreading across 58 projects in 44 states to make power more reliable and ready for clean energy. The projects are designed to bring more than 35 gigawatts of new renewable energy online — roughly half the country’s utility-scale solar capacity as of 2022. They’ll also fund 400 microgrids, giving hospitals, neighborhoods, and rural communities a way to keep the lights on when storms take down the main grid. Each project had to direct benefits toward communities historically hit hardest by outages and pollution. For a clean energy future to actually reach everyone, the wires connecting it all matter just as much as the panels and turbines — and this is what modernizing with equity in mind looks like.
Senate Bill 673 will create the “Ebony Alert” system for missing Black children and young women. When activated, the proposed system – similar to Amber or Silver alerts — would inform people of missing Black children and young women between the ages of 12 to 25.
More than a century ago, two dams were placed on the Elwha, blocking almost 90 miles of the river and its tributaries in Washington State. The dams were removed in August of 2014. Now, for the first time in more than a hundred years, members of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe are fishing for coho salmon on the free-flowing river.
Butler has served as a senior strategist in VP Kamala Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign, has worked as the director for public policy and campaigns at Airbnb, served as president of the California chapter of the Service Employees International Union, and served on the University of California Board of Regents.
Bioprinted skin combining all six primary skin cell types has, for the first time, been successfully grafted onto wounds in pre-clinical trials — closing them faster and with noticeably less scarring. Researchers at Wake Forest layered keratinocytes, fibroblasts, adipocytes, melanocytes, and two other cell types into a three-layer structure mirroring real skin, then watched it grow blood vessels and integrate naturally with surrounding tissue. A larger graft, roughly two inches square, worked on a pig model — a meaningful step toward the kind of scale human patients actually need. For burn survivors and others who simply don’t have enough healthy skin to donate, a lab-grown alternative made from their own cells could transform one of medicine’s most painful, limited tools into something closer to true regeneration.
A White House official said that the new discharges bring the total approved debt cancellation to $127 billion for nearly 3.6 million borrowers so far during Biden’s time in office.
