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.

3M mask, for article on PFAS phase-out

3M to end ‘forever chemicals’ output at cost of up to $2.3 bn

By / / Good News For Humankind

3M, one of the world’s largest makers of PFAS, will halt all production of these “forever chemicals” by the end of 2025, walking away from a business that brought in roughly $1.3 billion a year. The company expects to absorb up to $2.3 billion in pre-tax charges to exit — a sign it sees long-term liability as the bigger risk than lost revenue. The move follows mounting pressure from regulators, lawsuits, and a coalition of fund managers overseeing $8 trillion in assets who urged dozens of companies to phase PFAS out. Compounds linked to cancer, thyroid disruption, and developmental harm have turned up in drinking water and food supplies worldwide, and 3M’s deadline signals that the era of treating them as ordinary industrial inputs is drawing to a close.

Fiery glowing atomic nucleus abstract background, for article on fusion net energy gain

American fusion scientists claim net energy gain, in potentially huge renewables breakthrough

By / / Good News For Humankind

Fusion energy just cleared a barrier scientists have been chasing since the 1950s — producing more energy from a reaction than was needed to trigger it. Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory achieved this by blasting tiny hydrogen fuel capsules with lasers until they released roughly 20 percent more energy than the lasers delivered. The result doesn’t mean fusion power plants are imminent; enormous engineering challenges remain between this laboratory milestone and a working grid. But it does confirm that fusion’s central promise is physically real — and that gives scientists, investors, and policymakers something genuinely new to build on.

Brain model, for article on glioblastoma vaccine

Vaccine prolongs life of patients with aggressive brain cancer in new trial

By / / Good News For Humankind

Glioblastoma patients now have the most promising new treatment in nearly three decades, after a personalised vaccine more than doubled five-year survival rates in a large international trial. The vaccine works by extracting proteins from a patient’s own tumour and combining them with their white blood cells, training the immune system to recognise and destroy the cancer — with benefits seen even among those traditionally considered hardest to treat. If regulators approve it, this could signal a new era of personalised immunotherapy for cancers that have long resisted every available option.

Salmon swimming in river, for article on Klamath River dam removal

U.S. regulators approve world’s largest-ever dam demolition and river restoration project in California

By / / Good News For Humankind

Removing four dams on California’s Klamath River will reopen more than 300 miles of salmon habitat, making it the largest river restoration project ever attempted. Federal regulators approved the $500 million plan unanimously, capping decades of advocacy led by the Yurok, Karuk, and Hoopa Valley tribes, whose cultures and food systems have been bound to these fish since long before the first dam went up. “The Klamath salmon are coming home,” Yurok Chairman Joseph James said after the vote. As drought reshapes the American West, letting a major river run free again offers a powerful template for healing watersheds, honoring Indigenous leadership, and rethinking what aging infrastructure owes the living world.