January '25 Good News

USA

• No more unhoused veterans on the streets after a year into Denver, Colorado's All In Mile High Initiative program. (It has also permanently housed 857 people who are not veterans)

• Portland, Oregon partnered with Ground Score via project GLITTER (Ground Score Leading Inclusively Together Through Environmental Recovery) to provide hire unhoused people with jobs; being between $20-29 per hour. More than 70% have gotten a house after working for Ground Score

• Michael J. Fox Foundation partners up with Grifols -- a global healthcare company which has collected more than 100 million plasma samples of rare and chronic illnesses -- to identify traits of Parkinson's Disease before it develops

• The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has ruled to remove medical debt from affecting credit scores. About 49 million dollars will be removed from the credit reports of about 15 million people

World

• Recycled toilet paper is made from used diapers in Japan

• 3d printed house project in Ireland speeds up construction by 35%

• Kazakhstan's Aral Sea has had water volume increase by 42% since 1960s Soviet irrigation program split it in two separate bodies of water

• 200 UK charities and companies sign up for permanent 4 day work week

• Over 30 years, Bangladesh has managed to get every citizen access to electricity. Along with that, it has the most dramatic poverty decrease (44.2% in 1991 to 18.7% in 2022)

• Fatima and her company El Lama El Helwa gives loans to financially vulnerable women

• Blas Jaime has worked with UNESCO and linguist José Pedro Viegas Barros to keep the thought-to-be extinct for over 200 years indigenious Chaná language

• Thailand legalized gay marriage along with making hormone therapy free

Animals & Conservation

• New blue bee species Andrena androfovea which specializes in pollinating certain plants in the Nightshade family gets finally scientifically named

• New species of Pangolin is introduced: Indo-Burmese pangolin (Manis indoburmanica)

• Amazon deforestation halved from 10,278 sq km in 2022 to 5,153 sq km (1,989.6 sq miles) in 2023

• Bears, elephants, lions, tigers, primates, giraffes banned from Massachusetts traveling circuses

• McCormick Convention Center pairs up with the company Feather Friendly to add window deterrents with polka dots on them to lessen bird deaths

• New isopod species reaching 12.8 inches and more than 2.2 pounds off the Vietnamese city of Quy Nhơn named Bathynomus vaderi

• Bengal Floricans show signs of thriving in captivity

Sources

Denver homelessness, 2, 3

Portland trash pickup, 2, 3, 4

New blue bee species, 2, 3, 4

New Pangolin, Pangolin ZSI Press

Amazon deforestation, 2, 3, 4

Chaná language, 2

Toilet Paper Japan 1, Toilet Paper CEO press

Massachusetts bill, Massachusetts 2, Massachusetts 3

McCormick, American Bird Conservatory McCormick

Grifols News, Michael J Fox x Grifols

Ireland Housing, 2, 3

Isopod, 2, 3, 4, 5

Bengal Floricans, 2

Aral Sea, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Credit score Medical debt, 2

UK work week, 2, 3

Bangladesh, 2, 3, 4

El Lama El Helwa, 2

Thailand LGBTQ, 2, 3