Gates Foundation pledges $1.2B to eradicate polio globally
The money will be used to help implement the Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s strategy through 2026 and will be focused particularly on Pakistan and Afghanistan.
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.
Vast marine protected area in the Pacific Ocean has led to significant rebound in tuna stocks
Marine protected areas can do more than guard what’s inside their borders — and Papahānaumokuākea is proving it. This vast Hawaiian reserve, spanning over 580,000 square miles, was created to protect biodiversity and culturally sacred Indigenous sites, not to boost commercial fishing. Yet catch rates for yellowfin tuna in surrounding waters rose 54%, a spillover effect driven by the monument’s sheer scale. The findings strengthen the global case for ambitious ocean protection, arriving just as momentum builds toward safeguarding 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030.
Anna May Wong to become the first Asian American to be on U.S. currency
Dubbed Hollywood’s first Asian American movie star, Wong championed the need for more representation and less stereotypical roles for Asian Americans on screen.
California legalizes composting human bodies
California has just become the fifth state in the US to legalize the composting of human bodies, a planet-friendly alternative to the toxic process of cremation.
World-first stem cell therapy trial treats spina bifida before birth
Spina bifida causes nerve damage that accumulates in the womb, and until now, medicine could only respond after that damage was done. A clinical trial at UC Davis Health is changing that window, applying a stem cell patch directly to a fetus’s spine during pregnancy to support repair before birth. The first baby treated was expected to arrive with leg paralysis — instead, she was kicking and wiggling her toes. If results hold across all 35 enrolled patients, this could establish a genuinely new standard of care for a condition that currently offers families very little hope.
President Biden pardons all prior federal offenses of simple possession of marijuana
More than 6,000 people with prior federal convictions for simple possession of marijuana — and thousands of others convicted under Washington, D.C., law — could benefit.
New Delaware law ends many fines and fees that criminalize poverty
HB 244 bans courts from charging interest or imposing fees for late payments, failing to pay, or paying in installments, among several other changes meant to reduce abusive fines and fees.
New Alzheimer’s drug slows mental decline by 27% in trial
The Alzheimer’s Association called the robust study from American biotech company Biogen “the most encouraging results in clinical trials treating the underlying causes of Alzheimer’s to date.”
Youth crime in the U.S. has plummeted 78% since 1994
Law enforcement agencies made an estimated 424,300 arrests of youth in 2020, a 38% drop from the previous year and half the number from five years earlier.
U.S. Senate ratifies Kigali Amendment, joining more than 130 countries in treaty to eliminate HFCs
HFCs were widely adopted in the 1980s and 1990s to replace CFCs, which damage the Earth’s ozone layer. But then HFCs emerged as some of the most potent greenhouse gases, far more potent than carbon dioxide.