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🏳️‍⚧️ It’s Transgender Awareness Week, when trans people and their allies take action by educating the public about who trans people are, sharing stories and experiences, and advocating to end discrimination and violence that affect the transgender community.

☕️ More than 1,000 unionized workers at Starbucks are now on strike at 65 locations across the country to protest a lack of progress in labor negotiations with the company.

Indigenous people

Five Native tribes are coming together to protect a 624k-acre cultural landscape in California

Filled with towering rocks, hidden canyons, and its namesake lizard, Chuckwalla National Monument in California is one of the country’s newest protected public lands. It also holds sacred significance for the area’s Native tribes.

Five of those tribes have now established an intertribal commission to co-manage the 624,000-acre landscape, a historic step toward the tribes’ long-term goal of full sovereignty over the lands.

While it holds no veto power, the commitment is still significant. The tribes each passed resolutions to recognize their roles on the commission, and will now work to appoint members and write bylaws.

Why is this good news? Establishing a land use commission would not traditionally be cause for celebration, but in light of the U.S. government’s historic interactions with Native peoples, this is a significant, high-profile platform to advocate for the land. Especially as the Trump administration has hinted at a potential reversal of the monument’s designation.

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More Good News

​A historic military facility in the Bronx is becoming a giant mixed-use facility with affordable housing, an event center, and more. The first phase will create a “state-of-the-art venue space … and more than 25,000 square feet of dedicated community space,” and the second phase will add roughly 500 units of permanently affordable rental housing.

​A flagship report says the renewable energy supply boom will officially end the fossil fuel era. The International Energy Agency’s flagship report says the rise in low-carbon electricity will make the clean energy transition ‘inevitable’, despite President Trump’s calls to carry on drilling.

​New FDA-approved daily eye drops will help adults with age-related vision issues. The eye drop is said to help combat presbyopia, otherwise known as age-related blurry vision, and with just one drop in each eye, a person’s vision will improve for up to 10 hours, so they won't have to wear reading glasses.

​Restaurants in New Jersey are recycling discarded oyster and clam shells to rebuild coastal reefs. Instead of ending up in landfills, oyster and clam shells are collected from restaurants and then used to create and enhance oyster reefs in coastal waterways, which help provide habitats for marine life and improve water quality.

​A project protecting the Brazilian rainforest with drones and AI won an Earthshot Prize. Brazil is home to some of the planet’s largest areas of tropical forest, but they are under intense pressure. The Atlantic Forest, on the country’s eastern coast, once covered 350 million acres, but today only 12% of it remains.

Food

5 ‘foods of the future’ that could help save the planet

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good progress

Over 1 million balcony solar panel systems have been installed across Germany

Germany has been quietly bringing the benefits of renewable energy to renters across the country — over one million small solar panel systems now hang from apartment balconies and terraces across the country.

The milestone represents a major shift in how Germans generate their own electricity, especially among renters. The plug-and-play solar systems, called “Balkonkraftwerke” in German, can be installed without an electrician and plug into a regular wall outlet.

While the systems are limited to between 600 and 800 watts, but it’s enough to run your refrigerator, charge laptops, power LED lights, and run other small appliances throughout the year.

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More Good bits

🫶 Yesterday was World Kindness Day ​— but kindness never ends!

🚪 A New York City doorman moonlights as a helper. (TikTok)

❤️ Who’s helping meet needs during the shutdown? You are.

🦍 “But Jane led with hope, always.”​

🐟 Salmon in the Klamath River hit another post-dam milestone.

What’s good?

This week’s most-loved story was the one about the Pittsburgh dad’s grocery run to help his neighbors who were losing SNAP benefits.

Was there a good news story that stood out to you this week?

Reply and tell me what kept you feeling hopeful!

— Megan