Synopsis of last week's top good news stories.
As it has been the holiday season, the world's media (both large and small) has been quieter than usual on positive news stories - and OGN can only curate and share what it finds - so this global summary is rather shorter than usual for today's OGN Sunday Magazine.
Positive Emotions: This will come as a surprise to anyone with a regular news habit, but Gallup's annual global survey of 146,000 people in 142 countries revealed that negative emotions declined for the first time in a decade, and positive emotions reached their highest level since before the pandemic. Among all age groups, young people were by far the best off, and Latin American and Southeast Asian countries topped the list of places where people felt better about their lives.
Tennis Renaissance: According to a new survey by Italy's leading sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport, children’s tennis club enrolments have risen by 30 percent in 2024 alone. In 2001, the total number of tennis players registered in clubs was just 129,000; today, registrations have surpassed a million. It's all thanks to the world men’s No 1, Jannik Sinner, who is followed by a cohort of young, talented Italian players now climbing towards the top of the game.
Women Honorees: The U.S. Mint is making new quarters featuring five historical female figures this year. 2025 will mark the fourth and final year of the program, which will have issued 20 new quarters featuring the images of trailblazing figures from diverse ethnic, racial and geographic backgrounds.
Footprints: The UK's biggest ever dinosaur trackway site has been discovered in a quarry in Oxfordshire.
Disposable Vapes: Belgium has become the EU first country to ban the sale of disposable vapes in an effort to stop young people from becoming addicted to nicotine and to protect the environment.
Healing Bones: Researchers at the University of Oregon have developed tiny implantable sensors that help guide rehabilitation for broken bones. The devices provide real-time data, allowing protocols to be adjusted for optimal recovery. The team hopes the technology will soon help human patients.
First State to Ban PFAS: As of 1 January, Minnesota is the first US state to ban products made with harmful PFAs - that’s per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as “forever chemicals” due to the fact that they don’t naturally degrade. The new law means Minnesotans won’t be able to sell or distribute for sale consumer products with intentionally added PFAS within 11 specific categories, including cookware, dental floss, and cleaning products.
Cold Case Investigation: A missing British woman has been found 52 years after she vanished. Police say: “Every missing person has a story, and their families and friends deserve to know what happened to them and, hopefully, be reunited with them.”
Eco-Friendly Plastic: With plastic production forecast to double by 2050, the world urgently needs a sustainable alternative. This was further highlighted in November when petro-states effectively derailed a global deal to halt plastic pollution. However, the good news is that scientists in Japan have invented a material that might achieve the same result - an “environmentally friendly” plastic that dissolves in seawater in 10 hours and breaks down in soil in 10 days.
Superfund Act: "New York has fired a shot that will be heard round the world: the companies most responsible for the climate crisis will be held accountable.”
Global Solar: Global solar installations look set to reach an unprecedented 660GW in 2024, up 50 percent from 2023's previous record. The pace of deployment has become almost unfathomable - in 2010, it took a month to install a gigawatt, by 2016, a week, and in 2024, just 12 hours. Solar has become not just the cheapest form of new electricity in history, but the fastest-growing energy technology ever deployed, and the International Energy Agency said that the pace of deployment is now ahead of the trajectory required for net zero by 2050.
Solar Great Wall: Sandy and mostly devoid of life, the Kubuqi Desert in Inner Mongolia is part of China’s multiyear plan to build a solar great wall designed to generate enough energy to power Beijing. The project, expected to be finished in 2030, will be 400 km (250 miles) long, 5 km (3 miles) wide, and achieve a maximum generating capacity of 100 gigawatts. So far, Chinese officials say they have installed about 5.4 gigawatts.
Today's Articles
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