North & Central America

This archive covers progress stories from North and Central America, spanning the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and the nations of Central America. Readers will find reporting on health, environment, community resilience, and policy advances across the region.

High seas

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

By / / 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.

Hands opening empty wallet

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

By / / 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.

Illustration of artificial intelligence

California bans AI workplace surveillance of brain activity and emotions

By / / 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.

Silhouette of man under underpass

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

By / / 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.

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

By / / 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.

Large rolls of hundred dollar bills

Kentucky erases $250 million in medical debt for 130,000 residents

By / / Good News For Humankind

For tens of thousands of Kentuckians, medical debt just disappeared — no forms, no applications, just a letter in the mail. Governor Andy Beshear directed $2.5 million to a nonprofit that buys medical debt for pennies on the dollar and cancels it. The first wave already erased $103 million for 46,000 people. The money came from a fund originally set aside for housing assistance — a reminder that even well-designed relief still competes for limited dollars.

Inside Episcopal church, for article on transgender Episcopal dean

Episcopal Church names Micah Cronin of Milwaukee its first out transgender dean

By / / Good News For Humankind

Micah Cronin’s appointment as dean of All Saints’ Cathedral in Milwaukee marks a meaningful milestone for LGBTQ+ inclusion inside one of America’s major Christian denominations. Cronin, who found the Episcopal Church after feeling unwelcome in the conservative Methodist tradition he grew up in, sees his presence at the altar as an act of witness during a difficult moment for transgender Americans. Real tensions remain within the broader church, and not every diocese has embraced the same degree of inclusion. Still, his story shows how institutions long resistant to change can open doors that matter far beyond their walls.

Bison, for article on Chihuahuan Desert bison

Bison return to Mexican state of Coahuila for first time in 200 years

By / / Good News For Humankind

Cuatrociénegas is one of North America’s strangest landscapes: 324 square miles of spring-fed pools, gypsum dunes, and diverse plant life. What it lacked was a large grazer. Forty-eight bison, most transferred from the Rancho El Uno herd in Chihuahua’s Janos Biosphere Reserve, now break up compacted soil, carry seeds in their coats, and carve shallow wallows — restarting processes that stopped generations ago. That herd descends from 23 bison the U.S. sent from Wind Cave National Park in 2009. Mexico still lists bison as at risk, and with no predators here, managing the herd’s growth is an open question.

Black bear, for article on black bear recolonization

Black bear population rebounds across the American South after near collapse

By / / Good News For Humankind

Bears are not mountain animals — they thrive in swamps, pine stands, and farm-field margins, which is why the Mississippi floodplain was once their heartland. Mississippi had an estimated 12 bears left when it protected them in 1932; Arkansas, down to 40 or 50 in the 1950s, restocked with bears trucked in from Minnesota and Manitoba, now holds roughly 5,000. Louisiana’s bears left the federal threatened list in 2016. Females breed slowly and young males wander hundreds of miles, so the return is measured in decades. Conflict with farms and suburbs is the next problem to solve.

Inside a data center, for article on Massachusetts clean energy data centers

Massachusetts requires data centers over 25MW to run on 100% clean energy

By / / Good News For Humankind

Massachusetts is raising the bar for how AI infrastructure plugs into the power grid — requiring large data centers to bring clean energy with them, not just draw from whatever’s available. New facilities exceeding 25 megawatts must generate clean power, fund new clean capacity nearby, or pay into a ratepayer protection fund, and towns gain effective veto power before state agencies weigh in. The key question is whether compliance payments will be set high enough to drive real clean generation rather than checkbook compliance. Massachusetts is the third state in three months to move this way — a sign more may soon follow.