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.
The Social Security Administration has announced that it is now possible to self-select sex on Social Security records without the need to provide any legal or medical proof of a gender change.
Pancreatic cancer is one of the hardest diseases medicine has ever faced, and a new implant from Duke University is producing results that researchers say have no match in the existing scientific record. The device injects a radioactive gel directly into tumors, trapping iodine-131 so it radiates from the inside out before safely dissolving into harmless amino acids. Combined with chemotherapy, it eliminated tumors in the majority of mouse models tested. Human trials remain ahead, but for a disease where survival gains have been painfully slow, this early signal is genuinely remarkable.
In a 23 to 12 vote (with two abstentions), Tamaulipas became the 32nd state to legalize same-sex marriage, after the state of Guerrero did so just the day before.
Governor Newsom signed a new bill into law that will ban single-use plastic produce bags starting in 2025. The law requires that all such bags be replaced by recycled paper bags or compostable ones.
Regulations prohibiting the sale, purchase or transfer of handguns within Canada have now taken effect, building on earlier efforts banning handgun imports.
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.
Dubbed Hollywood’s first Asian American movie star, Wong championed the need for more representation and less stereotypical roles for Asian Americans on screen.
In a 50 to 16 vote, the largest state in Mexico has legalized same-sex marriage, becoming the 29th of 32 Mexican states to do so.
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.
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.
