This archive covers progress stories from North and Central America, spanning the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and the countries of Central America. The 1,760 articles here track milestones in areas such as public health, conservation, policy, and community-led initiatives across the region. Browse to find reported evidence of what is working and why.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) set a minimum effectiveness bar for COVID-19 vaccines at 50% for drugs seeking approval. This is the first COVID-19 candidate vaccine to produce data exceeding that mark.
Kamala Harris will become the first woman and first person of color to serve as Vice President.
Voters in Florida tossed their outdated $8.56 per hour minimum wage in this election as the state became the eighth in the country to adopt a $15 minimum wage. Like many other states, Florida will introduce the raise slowly, upping it to $10 next year and raising it by $1 each year until it reaches $15 in 2026.
50,000 more Californians were welcomed back into the democratic process this election as the state celebrates the passing of Prop 17. The proposition, which passed with support from 59 percent of voters, will allow paroled citizens convicted of felonies to vote.
Measure 109 apart it distinct from decriminalization efforts in that it offers a legal pathway to psilocybin therapy. It will establish a state-regulated program for using and obtaining them. In essence, accessing psilocybin as an adult in Oregon would be about as easy as signing up for counseling.
After the team from MIT trained its model on tens of thousands of cough and dialog samples, the technology recognized 98.5 percent of coughs from people with confirmed COVID-19 cases. It identified 100 percent of people who were ostensibly asymptomatic, too.
McBride, a former spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, overwhelmingly beat Republican candidate Steve Washington in Delaware’s 1st District, a heavily Democratic district that includes the city of Wilmington.
Voters have approved ballot measures to legalize recreational marijuana in Arizona and New Jersey, and both recreational and medical use in in South Dakota. Results have not yet been determined for Montana’s ballot questions on recreational marijuana and Mississippi’s medical marijuana measure.
This is being done under pressure from the French government, which holds a 23.6% stake in Engie. The delay was driven in large part by concerns over the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of US gas production, particularly from the Permian Basin, which will feed NextDecade’s proposed Rio Grande LNG export plant in Texas.
By last Friday, more citizens had already voted in Texas than in the entire 2016 election. These early statistics show that 2020 could be a record-breaking year for early turnout across the entire country. Amidst the throngs of early voters is a dramatic increase in voter turnout among young voters.
