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.

A researcher examining a vial in a cancer immunotherapy laboratory for an article about personalized mRNA cancer vaccine

Personalized mRNA vaccine keeps pancreatic cancer at bay six years after treatment

By / / Good news links

Personalized mRNA cancer vaccine shows remarkable results in a small but significant trial for pancreatic cancer, one of medicine’s most stubborn killers. Six years after treatment, seven of eight patients who mounted an immune response remain alive — extraordinary for a disease with a five-year survival rate below 13%. The custom-built vaccine targets genetic mutations unique to each patient’s tumor, training the immune system to eliminate remaining cancer cells after surgery. New findings suggest the immune response may be self-sustaining, with helper T cells replenishing the killer T cells that attack cancer. A larger Phase 2 trial is now underway.

Aerial view of the forested Klamath River canyon for an article about Yurok land back in California

Yurok Tribe reclaims 17,000 acres in California’s largest-ever land back deal

By / / Good News For Humankind

Yurok land back reached a historic milestone as the Yurok Tribe reacquired 17,000 acres of ancestral territory along the Klamath River, marking the largest land return agreement in California history. Secured through a partnership with conservation land trusts, the transfer places forests, sacred sites, and traditional fishing grounds back under Yurok governance. The timing amplifies the impact: salmon are already returning following the largest dam removal project in U.S. history, and Yurok stewardship gives that restoration its best chance at lasting success. The deal’s structure — using a perpetual conservation easement — offers a replicable blueprint for tribal land return negotiations nationwide.

Close-up of forensic evidence collection supplies in a clinical setting for an article about rape kit history and Martha Goddard

How one survivor-advocate’s idea became the global standard for sexual assault evidence

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Rape kit history traces back to Martha Goddard, a Chicago survivor-advocate who designed the standardized sexual assault evidence collection kit in the mid-1970s after recognizing that inconsistent protocols were allowing offenders to escape prosecution. First deployed across 26 Cook County hospitals in September 1978, the kit spread to 215 Illinois hospitals within two years and reached New York City by 1982. Today, more than 700 Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner programs use standardized rape kit protocols across the United States, Canada, and Australia. What began as one woman’s response to institutional failure became the global infrastructure for forensic sexual assault investigation.

A person repairing a smartphone circuit board for an article about right to repair laws

Right to repair laws have now been introduced in all 50 U.S. states

By / / Good News For Humankind

Right to repair legislation has now been introduced in all 50 U.S. states, marking a historic milestone for the consumer rights movement. In 2025, five states — New York, California, Minnesota, Oregon, and Colorado — passed laws requiring manufacturers to provide independent shops and individual owners with the parts, tools, and documentation needed to fix their own devices and equipment. This matters because it breaks the manufacturer-controlled repair monopoly that has driven up costs, reduced competition, and accelerated electronic waste. The milestone reflects eleven years of broad, bipartisan grassroots organizing — and with active bills in 24 states, momentum is only growing.

Aerial view of a Hawaiian coral reef and turquoise coastline for an article about Hawaii climate resilience fee

Hawaii becomes the first U.S. state to charge visitors a climate resilience fee

By / / Good News For Humankind

Hawaii’s climate resilience fee, signed into law in May 2025, makes the state the first in the U.S. to require visitors to pay a dedicated charge funding environmental protection. Governor Josh Green’s signing of Senate Bill 1396 creates a roughly 5-per-trip levy directed toward coral reef restoration, coastal defense, and sea-level rise adaptation. With around 10 million annual visitors, the fund could generate hundreds of millions of dollars each year. The move positions Hawaii as a potential national model for making tourism directly accountable for the ecological costs it creates.

A surgical team performing a complex organ procedure for an article about bladder transplant surgery, for article on bladder transplant

California surgeons perform the world’s first successful bladder transplant

By / / Good News For Humankind

Bladder transplant surgery has been successfully performed on a human patient for the first time in medical history. Oscar Larrainzar, a 41-year-old California father of four, received a donor bladder and kidney simultaneously in early May 2025, after cancer treatment left him without either organ. He has since been taken off dialysis entirely. The procedure was developed over four years by surgeons at USC and UCLA, who now plan a formal clinical trial to refine the technique. For patients who have lost bladder function, transplantation is no longer theoretical.

Dried psilocybin mushrooms on a surface for an article about psilocybin therapy legalization in New Mexico, for article on Oregon psilocybin facilitators

New Mexico becomes the third U.S. state to legalize psilocybin therapy

By / / Good News For Humankind

New Mexico’s Medical Psilocybin Act makes the state the third in the U.S. to legalize psilocybin therapy, but its path stands apart from Oregon and Colorado. Rather than a ballot measure, the legislation passed through the state legislature with an overwhelming bipartisan margin of 56 to 8 in the House. The law creates a regulated clinical framework for treating PTSD, treatment-resistant depression, and other conditions, with a dedicated 30,000 equity fund to subsidize access for low-income patients. That combination of legislative flexibility and built-in affordability measures offers a replicable model for other states watching closely.

Solar panels and wind turbines generating power on open land for an article about U.S. clean electricity

Fossil fuels fall below half of U.S. electricity for the first time on record

By / / Good News For Humankind

U.S. clean electricity reached a historic milestone in April 2025, when fossil fuels dropped below 50% of American electricity generation for the first time since the coal-powered grid emerged in the 1800s. According to energy research firm Ember, coal, oil, and natural gas fell to roughly 47% of total generation, with wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear powering the rest. This shift was driven by a 90% drop in wind and solar costs since 2010, triggering sustained investment now visible in real grid output. The milestone matters because it breaks the long-held assumption that fossil fuels are the inevitable backbone of modern electricity.

Chevron gas station located near a Louisiana wetlands restoration project site along the coast, for article on Louisiana wetlands restoration

Chevron ordered to pay $740 million to restore Louisiana coast in landmark trial

By / / Good News For Humankind

Louisiana wetlands just got a powerful new defender: a jury ordered Chevron to pay $744.6 million to restore marshland in Plaquemines Parish, with interest pushing the total past $1.1 billion. Jurors found that Texaco, which Chevron acquired in 2001, had spent decades dredging canals and dumping wastewater into the marsh without meaningful cleanup. The ruling matters far beyond one rural parish — it’s the first of dozens of similar cases to reach trial, and the communities on this vanishing coast are disproportionately Black, Indigenous, and low-income. As courts from Europe to the Americas increasingly hold polluters accountable, this verdict signals that coastal destruction is no longer just a political fight. It’s a legal one.

Prairie Land Potawatomi Nation's Chief Shab-eh-nay, for article on Land Back Illinois

Illinois returns stolen land to Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation

By / / Good News For Humankind

Land Back just scored a major win in Illinois: Governor JB Pritzker signed a law transferring 1,500 acres of Shabbona Lake State Recreation Area to the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, honoring a treaty signed in 1829. The land was taken while Chief Shab-eh-nay was visiting family in Kansas, then sold off to settlers. Returning it took years of patient relationship-building by nation chairman Joseph “Zeke” Rupnick, who met repeatedly with neighbors and lawmakers. The park stays open to its half-million annual visitors, with campsites and trails intact — what changes is who holds the title. It’s one parcel, but it’s a real, legally binding step in a movement reshaping how the U.S. reckons with Indigenous land.