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🪧 This time last week, protesters gathered in cities large and small across the U.S. for nationwide "Hands Off!" protests to rally specifically against the actions of President Donald Trump and DOGE.
🎾 Billie Jean King made history (again) by becoming the first woman athlete to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the Sports Entertainment category.
🚂 In response to news reports and backlash, the National Park Service reversed edits andrestored original content to its webpage about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad.
Food & education
Photo: Rick Egan/The Salt Lake Tribune
Utah expanded its free school meal program to include 40,000 more students
Utah's governor approved a bill to eliminate the state's reduced-cost lunch program — instead, families will get those meals for free.
Starting July 1, the state is expanding the free school meals program to an additional 40,000 students in kindergarten through sixth grade. Next school year, even more students will be eligible.
The new legislation also prevents schools from "stigmatizing students who cannot afford meals" by eliminating practices like using different colored lunch trays for those on the free meals program.
Why is this good news? A reduced-price school meal in Utah costs 40 cents, but many families still struggle to afford meals, and schools in the state still have around $2.8 million in lunch debt.
Lunch debt is a huge burden for families all across the country — and this is important progress toward ensuring all kids can learn on a full stomach.
To address food insecurity, a group of Baltimore women is building a community fridge network
Recognizing the difficulty some folks have in being able to travel to and access local food pantries where and when they're open, a group of four women in Baltimore wanted to bring the food to them.
The Bmore Community Fridge Network is a map of community fridges and neighborhood pantries across the city, and it's hoping to connect nearby residents with free food.
Not only will the map help those in need of food — it will also serve those looking for places to donate food. Right now, the map has four community fridges featured, and the women are working quickly to add more.
Why is this good news? Maryland Food Bank data shows more than 90,000 city residents are food insecure, and 1 in 3 Marylanders face food insecurity. While the number of residents experiencing food insecurity is down from last year, the region's rate is nearly twice as high as the national average.
This network is essential in making it easier to collect donations and connect people in need with fresh food that's nearby.
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An architecture firm in Hawaii is building more sustainable homes out of surfboard waste
While Hawaii is seeing a shortage of housing and space for new landfills, one plentiful thing it has is surfboards. But making surfboards results in a lot of waste — so an architecture firm is using it to build homes.
Hawaii Off Grid is turning polystyrene foam offcuts from surfboard building into cinder block-style forms for building homes. The first home to use the "Surf Blocks" is nearing completion, and it could set a new precedent for home-building on the island.
The state has looked into a number of options to solve its housing issues while also keeping climate change in mind, which has devastated the island with weather events like the Maui wildfires.
Why is this good news? For a lot of reasons! This solution helps solve several issues at once: Hawaii's chronic housing crisis, increased costs of building materials, which is partly due to them shipped to and sold at a premium in Hawaii, lack of landfill space for waste, and an abundance of surfboard waste.
Undue Medical Debt is paying off $30 billion worth of medical debt for 20 million people
In a single transaction with a debt trading company, the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt (formerly RIP Medical Debt) announced it would be paying off $30 billion worth of unpaid medical debt.
The sale will impact an estimated 20 million people, mostly in Texas and Florida, with an average patient debt of $1,100 — though some debt was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
With the massive transaction, millions of people will be protected from being targeted by collectors.
What's the nuance? It's important to note that the medical debt crisis in the U.S. now touches an estimated 100 million people nationwide. So while it's incredibly good news (and so worth celebrating!) that 20 million people will have this burden lifted, so many others still need help.
Clean energy powered over 40% of global electricity in 2024 for the first time since the 1940s
In the 1940s, the power system was about 50 times smaller than it is today. That was the last time clean energy surpassed 40% of global electricity — it just did it again in 2024.
Similar to the 1940s, though, that milestone was made up largely by hydropower, one of the oldest renewable energy technologies, which made up 14% of global electricity.
And while solar only made up 7% of global electricity, it had a significant hand in the benchmark, too, since its capacity has doubled in the last three years and it's been the world's fastest-growing source of energyfor the last 20 years.
What's the nuance? Experts had hoped that global energy use would peak in 2023, but the global power sector grew by 1.6% last year, and that may continue as a result of increased use of artificial intelligence, data centers, electric vehicles, heat pumps, and more.
Still, experts and the data show that renewables are up for the challenge, and fossil fuels are not a part of that future.
This week, the Good Good Good team has been reporting live from TED 2025 in Vancouver. Some of the most thought-provoking, inspiring, and truly world-changing ideas have been shared from the TED stage — we're thrilled to report that this year brought so much more of that good energy.
Here are some of our favorite stories from the week (and watch this space for even more good news and exciting announcements shared from the TED stage!) —
*Some of these recommendations may include affiliate links, which means if you buy anything from this email, we may get something in return at no extra cost to you. (Thanks for your support!)
What's good?
This week, daily Goodnewsletter subscribers also (*really*) enjoyed reading about countries that had successfully reversed the decline of their democracies in recent years. Can't imagine why. 😉
Which good news story most encouraged you this week?
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