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In the headlines...

🗳️ With an estimated 124.3 million votes cast, the 2026 midterm election likely had the second-highest midterm turnout rate since 1914.

🐨 After more than a decade of campaigning, Australia passed legislation to create the Great Koala National Park in New South Wales.

Governments doing good

Gov. Gavin Newsom commuted the sentences of all 548 people on death row in California

California Gov. Gavin Newsom told the state’s Supreme Court that he will commute the sentences of all 548 people facing execution, lowering their sentences to life without parole.

Newsom can commute about 40% of the death sentences on his own, but the rest will require the high court’s approval in order to be finalized.

If the California Supreme Court approves the commutations, reducing them to life without parole, it would be the largest mass commutation of death sentences in U.S. history. The number of people sentenced to death nationwide would drop by nearly a third.

Why is this good news? The death penalty is irreversible, and the margin of error is unacceptably high — and after decades of research, there is no evidence that the death penalty is more effective than life imprisonment in reducing crime. Even police say its use is an inefficient use of taxpayer dollars to fight crime.

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You may also like: How to abolish the death penalty in the United States — and why we should​

More Good News

​A women-led team is working to bring 13 of Patagonia’s largest birds back to the wild. Working with Rewilding Chile Foundation, the rangers care for the Darwin’s rheas around the clock, facing harsh weather, predators like pumas, illegal livestock grazing, and other threats to the fragile ecosystem.

​Dallas just opened its first of 15 planned “pocket parks” in the city. Dallas’ Greening Initiative plans to turn underused, city-owned land into small, neighborhood-designed green spaces in areas with limited access to parks.

​New Jersey is putting 10 megawatts of community solar on warehouse roofs. Putting panels on large, flat warehouse roofs gives the same building the job of generating electricity without taking up additional land — and it will help participating households save money on their electricity bills.

​The WHO says Barbados has officially eliminated mother-to-child transmission of HIV. It’s a major public health milestone resulting from years of sustained efforts to ensure babies are born free of HIV.

​Denmark will end mink farming by August 2029 after the government dropped plans to pursue an exemption to an EU-wide ban. Denmark was once the world's largest producer of mink fur, but the industry has declined because of global bans on fur farming, a decline in the fur trade, and more.

Environment

The CO2-absorbing building made of old sinks, windscreens and toilets: Ghent’s £17m design museum is a green marvel

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good progress

New research found that newborn deaths in Flint, Michigan fell by 50% after Rx Kids launched

A new study found that neonatal mortality, or the death of an infant withing the first 28 days of life, fell by 50% in Flint, Michigan after the launch of RxKids. Early neonatal mortality, death within the first seven days of life, fell even more, by 74%.

Building on previous research, the new data show the life-saving success of providing community-wide financial support during pregnancy and infancy.

Before Rx Kids launched, the neonatal mortality rate in Flint was more than twice as high as the rest of the state — 10.2 deaths per 1,000 live births, compared to 4.0 statewide. Within one year of the program’s launch, it fell to 5.1 deaths per 1,000 live births, while the state was virtually unchanged at 3.9.

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More Good bits

🌼 Daisy Chain Fields was for the girls and the voters.

🍳 Barcelona’s grandmas are dishing out cooking wisdom.

🦝 Incarcerated people are helping rehab animals.

📵 One country takes no phones at the dinner table seriously.

💦 Water security secret weapon: Grey water.

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