Milestones from Today (2017 C.E. - 2025 C.E.)

Illustration of many electric cars charging

Gasoline-only cars drop below 50% of global sales for first time on record

By Peter Schulte / October 9, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

Gasoline-only cars are losing their grip as fuel prices jump, but the shift is more complicated than a clean break from gas. Hybrids took about 18% of new car sales in the first half of 2026, edging out battery-electric cars at 17%, and hybrids still burn gasoline. Electric sales fell in China and North America even as they rose 32% in Europe. The data covers six months of an oil price shock, so it may not hold if fuel prices fall.

Vietnam creates 7,900-acre refuge for critically endangered Delacour’s langurs

By Peter Schulte / October 8, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

Delacour’s langur, a monkey found only in the limestone hills of northern Vietnam, now has legal cover for one of its last strongholds. Scientists found the Kim Bang group in 2016 with about 40 animals, and state media counted 128 last year. About 4,500 acres are strictly protected and another 3,400 are set for restoration. But no buffer zone has been proposed, and quarrying and poaching still threaten the forest.

Morocco appoints Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri as its first woman prime minister

By Peter Schulte / October 7, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

Morocco’s first woman prime minister starts with a government still to build. Her party won 97 of 395 seats, well short of the 198 needed for a majority, so coalition talks with three parties began the day after her appointment. The king must now pick from the largest party under a rule adopted after the 2011 Arab Spring protests, yet he keeps sweeping powers over defense and foreign affairs. Turnout was 38%, the lowest since 2007.

Canada ratifies the High Seas Treaty, joining global rules for protecting ocean life

By Peter Schulte / October 6, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

The High Seas Treaty covers nearly half of Earth’s surface, including international waters and the seabed, and took effect worldwide in January. It sets up environmental reviews of high-seas activities and lets countries propose marine protected areas there. Canada is backing its commitment with 24.4 million Canadian dollars over five years, and the treaty applies to it from late October. Only 1.5% of the high seas is protected today.

New Jersey has erased $1.6 billion in medical debt since 2023

By Peter Schulte / October 6, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

Nearly 20,000 more New Jersey residents learned by mail that medical debt relief had erased $90 million of their bills, with no application needed. The nonprofit Undue Medical Debt buys unpaid bills from hospitals and collectors at steep discounts and cancels them. In 2024 C.E., about $550,000 in federal funds cleared $100 million this way. Those one-time funds are now spent, so the state says it will focus on the cost of care itself.

California bans AI workplace surveillance of brain activity and emotions

By Peter Schulte / October 1, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

AI workplace surveillance already extends into territory most employees don’t expect: software that infers how a worker feels, or hardware that reads activity in their nervous system. California just drew a specific line around both, covering neural data and emotion inference wherever AI tools collect it, while leaving safety-related surveillance untouched. Violations carry civil penalties of up to $500 each.

Pakistan vaccinates 45 million children against polio as cases drop sharply in 2026

By Peter Schulte / September 30, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

Polio vaccination in Pakistan isn’t a once-a-year event; it’s a repeated campaign aimed at the same roughly 45 million children under five, delivered three times over on average in 2026 alone. Four separate campaigns, two nationwide and two targeting high-risk districts, have put polio drops in children’s mouths more than 135.9 million times this year. That sustained effort continues a decline already underway: cases fell from 74 in 2024 to 31 in 2025, and now stand at just four in 2026.

U.S. Veterans Affairs awards record $1.17 billion to fight veteran homelessness

By Peter Schulte / September 29, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

Veteran homelessness in the United States has fallen sharply over the past 15 years, and the Department of Veterans Affairs is now backing that trend with its largest single funding push yet. The money splits between two programs: one for rapid rehousing and eviction prevention, the other for transitional housing aimed at women veterans, elderly veterans, and those with chronic illness. None of it reaches veterans directly; it funds the 680 local organizations that do.

Once extinct in the wild, more than 600 scimitar-horned oryx now roam Chad

By Peter Schulte / September 28, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

The scimitar-horned oryx, a pale, long-horned Sahara antelope, has become a test case for whether captive-bred animals can relearn life in the wild. Researchers tracking the herd released in Chad since 2016 see early signs the animals are rebuilding social bonds and migration knowledge lost when wild herds vanished, and the same approach now helps other endangered antelope like the addax. Still, the species remains Endangered, and conservationists say securing its future is unfinished work.

Record 3,794 women are nominees across 2026 U.S. state legislative races

By Peter Schulte / September 24, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

Women’s presence in American state governments has climbed for decades, and this year’s candidate pool is the clearest sign yet of how far that shift has come — more women are seeking state legislative office than at any point in U.S. history. The gains aren’t even, though: Democratic women set their own record, while Republican women actually fell short of their 2022 high, and women still hold just a third of all state legislative seats nationwide. Whether this record of candidates becomes a record of winners won’t be clear until Election Day in November.