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In the headlines...

✝️ After the Archdiocese asked them to remove it, a Boston-area church elected to keep its nativity display protest featuring an “ICE was here” sign where Jesus, Mary, and Joseph would normally sit.

🚫 In a world-first, Australia’s youth social media ban is now in effect, deactivating more than 1 million social media accounts held by users under 16 years old. It says it will be the world’s “first domino.”

Clean energy

Connecticut pioneered a model to directly develop solar for towns, schools, and low-income housing to lower energy costs

Connecticut Green Bank was the country’s first green bank, and its Solar Marketplace Assistance Program Plus has deployed $145 million on nearly 54 megawatts’ worth of solar projects in sectors that private lenders and developers would typically avoid because of perceived risks or low returns.

The revenues it generates from its projects are used to expand a pool of capital to fund other projects and help the state achieve its clean energy and environmental justice goals.

Despite being the third-smallest state, Connecticut is now ranked fifth in the country for solar capacity installed on K-12 schools. It’s second, behind only Hawaii, in the percentage of K-12 schools with solar.

Why is this good news? With federal clean-energy tax credits disappearing and energy costs on the rise, making the switch to solar — for cities, states, schools, and even individuals — is increasingly challenging. This new approach makes it more accessible and could be a model for other states to follow.

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More Good News

​Largely serving southern California, Utah’s largest coal-fired power plant is no longer operating. The Los Angeles Department of Power and Water quietly shut the facility down with no impact on customers. Utah’s legislature blocked the Intermountain Power Agency from fully retiring fossil fuel units this year, but no buyer stepped up to keep it running.

​Around 118 million women across India are receiving unconditional cash transfers for unpaid household work. The program makes India the site of one of the world’s largest and least-studied social-policy experiments: paying adult women simply because they keep households running, bear the burden of unpaid care, and form an electorate too large to ignore.

​A Colorado city is making its largest one-year investment in affordable housing, distributing $21 million this year. The funds went to two organizations that will add 184 affordable homes to the city’s inventory.

​A groundbreaking new therapy has reversed aggressive and incurable blood cancers in some patients. Involving precisely editing the DNA in white blood cells to transform them into a cancer-fighting “living drug,” the first girl to be treated is still free of the disease, and 64% of 10 more patients are also in remission.

Mental Health

No more ‘heart vs. head:’ New study shows how empathy and reasoning both inspire us to help others

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good progress

Amid dwindling national investment, Portland is giving out $64 million in clean energy grants

Portland just approved $64.4 million in funding for 60 nonprofit-led projects that will help the city reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and advance the clean energy transition over the next five years.

The projects tackle building more affordable and energy-efficient homes, workforce development, helping residents access electric vehicles, and more.

It’s all being doled out through the Portland Clean Energy Fund, a first-of-its-kind, voter-approved climate action program. The city has so far allocated $1.71 billion in PCEF funding, supporting over 220 nonprofits with 381 total grants awarded.

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More Good bits

🫧 Farts, burps, and grunts are leading scientists to new species.

🗳️ There’s a better way to do (extremist-free) elections.

✏️ New Mexico is helping unhoused youth stay in school.

🐶 Now that’s how you help dogs get adopted. (Instagram)

❄️ Beat the winter blues, the Nordic way.