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.

Mail-in ballot with pen

Colorado to be first state in the U.S. to expand automatic voter registration to tribes

By / / Good news links

Tribal communities in Colorado share some of the same registration and voting barriers as other rural communities across the U.S., like geographic isolation and unreliable mail delivery. But according to the Native American Rights Fund, tribal communities also commonly experience obstacles like language barriers, a lack of voter registration opportunities, and state laws in some parts of the country that block polling places on tribal lands.

Self-portrait of a woman with cancer and her children, for article on triple-negative breast cancer vaccine

Triple-negative breast cancer vaccine shows good response in first clinical trial of patients

By / / Good News For Humankind

A new breast cancer vaccine sparked an immune response in three out of four patients during its first human safety trial — with no serious side effects reported. The Cleveland Clinic study targeted triple-negative breast cancer, an aggressive subtype that resists most standard treatments and disproportionately affects younger women and Black women. The vaccine works by training the immune system to recognize a lactation protein found in most TNBC tumors but absent in healthy adult tissue, giving immune cells a clear target. Next come larger trials testing whether it can prevent recurrence and even attack active tumors. It’s an early but hopeful signal in the growing field of cancer immunotherapy, where teaching the body to find cancer itself is reshaping what treatment can look like.

Furnace flames

Massachusetts becomes first U.S. state to approve phase-out of natural gas as a source for residential heating

By / / Good news links

According to Inside Climate News, Massachusetts is the first state to take such a clear step to phase out natural gas, but it likely won’t be the last. At least 11 other states, including California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington — as well as Washington, D.C. — have ongoing regulatory cases that are exploring the future of natural gas.

Pills spilling out of pill bottle, for article on march-in rights policy

U.S. sets policy to seize patents of government-funded drugs if price deemed too high

By / / Good News For Humankind

Drug patent seizures are back on the table for the first time in over 40 years, with the Biden administration releasing a draft roadmap that explicitly lets the federal government license out medicines to competitors when companies charge prices most Americans can’t afford. The power has existed since 1980 but was never used or even defined — until now. Price itself is now a factor: if a drug was built on taxpayer-funded research through agencies like the NIH, and the company sells it out of reach of ordinary patients, generics could be authorized. Even as a credible threat, this reframes who publicly funded science is really for — and could shift drug pricing fights well beyond U.S. borders.

Ford E-Transit, for article on wireless EV charging roadway

Detroit becomes first city in the U.S. to install wireless-charging roadway

By / / Good News For Humankind

Wireless EV charging just made its U.S. public-road debut on a quarter-mile stretch of 14th Street in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood. Copper coils embedded beneath the pavement send electricity through a magnetic field to receivers mounted under compatible vehicles, topping up batteries with no plug, no stop, and no waiting. A Ford E-Transit van will gather real-world data over a five-year pilot, with city buses and delivery fleets as especially promising candidates down the road. There’s a lovely symmetry in the city that birthed the auto industry helping reimagine how cars are powered — and a reminder that the shift to clean transportation tends to begin with exactly these kinds of modest, hopeful experiments.

Big trucks at a copper mine, for article on Rights of Nature law

Panama copper mine to close after Supreme Court rules concession unconstitutional

By / / Good News For Humankind

Rights of Nature law just did something it had never quite done before at this scale: Panama’s Supreme Court unanimously used it to shut down one of the hemisphere’s largest copper mines, finding the concession failed to meet nature’s legal right to protection and regeneration. The ruling sets real precedent — any future project in Panama that can’t clear that same constitutional standard faces the same risk. The Canadian operator is pursuing international arbitration, so the dispute is far from over. Case by case, courtrooms across the Americas are turning ecological rights from policy aspirations into enforceable law.

Small airplane, for article on sustainable aviation fuel

Gulfstream completes first-ever transatlantic flight with 100% Sustainable Aviation Fuel

By / / Good News For Humankind

Sustainable aviation fuel just crossed the Atlantic on its own, with no fossil jet fuel in the tank. A Gulfstream G600 flew from Savannah, Georgia to Farnborough, England in under seven hours, becoming the first aircraft to make the transatlantic journey on 100% SAF. The engines weren’t modified for the trip, hinting that existing planes could one day run on cleaner fuel without expensive retrofits. Gulfstream now plans to share the flight data with U.S. regulators to help certify full SAF use beyond today’s blended limits. For an industry where battery and hydrogen flight remain distant, this single crossing offers something rare: a glimpse of long-haul aviation that could actually clean up before 2050.

Car engine

New Jersey to ban sales of gas-powered cars by 2035

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Under the state Department of Environmental Protection’s “Advanced Clean Cars II” rule, manufacturers must ensure that 43% of new light-duty vehicles they make in 2027 are electric, with the percentage rising annually to 100% by 2035. Most consumer cars and pickup trucks are considered light-duty.