Good News Links

Warsaw, Poland

Coal produces less than half of Poland’s power for first time since 1800s

/

According to a report by Forum Energii, an energy think tank, electricity produced from coal in April 2025 amounted to 6.5 terawatt-hours (TWh), accounting for 49.4% of the total energy mix. This represents an 18.9% decrease from March and a 9.6% drop compared to the same month in 2024. Forum Energii described recent changes in the electricity mix as “unprecedented”, noting that the use of coal had fallen by 29.9 percentage points between April 2015 and April 2025.

Peace sign lit in the sky at night

Kurdistan Workers’ Party agrees to peace deal with Turkey, ending deadly 40-year conflict

/

The decision promises to put an end to one of the longest insurgencies in the Middle East and could have significant impact in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. In February, party leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned since 1999, urged his group to convene a congress and formally decide to disband. The call by Ocalan marked a pivotal step toward ending the decades-long conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives since the 1980s.

Teal Wand - Pap smear alternative

The U.S. FDA approves first at-home tool as a Pap-smear alternative

/

Traditionally, gynecologists have inserted a cold metal speculum deep into a woman’s vagina to scrape cells from the cervix. The Teal Wand — “built with empathy” by California-based Teal Health — uses a swab to collect a vaginal sample. Women will then mail the sample to a lab that will screen for HPV (human papillomavirus), the virus that causes nearly all cervical cancers. The FDA approval follows a U.S.-based study that found at-home screening was just as effective as that done in a doctor’s office.

Brazilian flag

Brazil court grants gender-neutral ID in historic victory

/

A nonbinary person in Brazil has been granted official documents with a neutral gender marker for the first time in a unanimous court decision. The case involves a person who originally requested to be recognized as male on their official documents after starting hormone replacement therapy, but later regretted this decision and appealed to the Supreme Court of Justice in Brasilia. According to the AP, the case represents the first time that someone in Brazil has been able to get gender-neutral official documents in the country.

Fur coats

Chinese fast-fashion giant Shein bans fur and wild-animal skins across its online marketplace

/

Shein’s updated ban covers any items made from the skins or feathers of all animals considered to be “exotic”, including ostrich feathers, alligators, and snakes. The decision comes after PETA noticed several third-party vendors offering real fur products and accessories made from exotic animal skins on Shein’s marketplace platform in 2024. Shein previously maintained a no-fur policy for its in-house brands; however, this policy did not extend to third-party sellers operating on its marketplace platform.

Leopard

Sri Lanka’s Kumana National Park emerges as a stronghold for vulnerable leopards

/

A new study reports a notably high density of Sri Lankan leopards in the country’s Kumana National Park. Using camera traps, the study recorded more than 90 leopard encounters, including 34 identified individual leopards, captured on film across a 16-month survey period. Since 2017, a citizen science program has also recorded 80 individual leopards in Kumana, using a naming system to identify each individual. The Sri Lankan leopard is tagged as a species “vulnerable” to extinction, according to the IUCN Red List criteria.

|varshesh joshi unsplash

Marine litter on the E.U. coastline down by almost one-third since 2015

/

The new E.U. Coastline Macro Litter Trend report has found that the amount of marine macro litter in the E.U. coastline has dropped by 29% between 2015-2016 and 2020-2021. While the largest reduction in terms of percentages is seen at the Baltic Sea (45%), major efforts at the Mediterranean and the Black Sea have led to impressive reductions in the absolute amount of litter on European beaches. This achievement is the result of multilateral, national, regional, and citizen efforts triggered by the Marine Strategy Framework Directive.

Coral reef with fish

New Caledonia bans ‘dangerous’ seabed mining for half a century

/

The South Pacific French territory has imposed a 50-year ban on deep-sea mining across its entire maritime zone – a rare and sweeping move that places it among the most restrictive in the world on seabed extraction. The law blocks all commercial exploration, prospecting, and mining of mineral resources within New Caledonia’s exclusive economic zone – an area of over 500,000 square miles. New Caledonia is considered a global hotspot for marine biodiversity. Its waters are home to nearly one-third of the world’s remaining pristine coral reefs.

Baltimore reports historic drop in homicide rates

/

Thousands of Arizonans now have a financial burden lifted off their shoulders, Gov. Katie Hobbs has announced. According to the Democratic governor, $429 million in medical debt has been erased for more than 352,000 Arizonans as part of a partnership between her administration and national nonprofit Undue Medical Debt. In 2024, Hobbs announced an initiative to erase $2 billion in medical debt for up to one million Arizonans.

Rooftop solar

Solar panels to be fitted on all new-build homes in England by 2027

/

Almost all new homes in England will be fitted with solar panels during construction within two years. Under the plans, housebuilders will be legally required to install solar panels on the roofs of new properties by 2027. The policy is estimated to add between £3,000 and £4,000 to building a home, but homeowners would save more than £1,000 on their annual energy bills, according to the Times.

Scroll to Top