Some Updates...

🚨 Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin officially broke Wayne Gretzky’s NHL goals record — he’d famously been using the lead-up to raise money for cancer research.​

💉 Heartbreakingly, a second child has died in the current measles outbreak in Texas, which has now infected over 400 people ... and led to a 16% increase in vaccinations statewide in the first three months of the year.

Health

Undue Medical Debt is paying off $30 billion worth of medical debt for 20 million people

In a single transaction with a debt trading company, the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt (formerly RIP Medical Debt) announced it would be paying off $30 billion worth of unpaid medical debt.

The sale will impact an estimated 20 million people, mostly in Texas and Florida, with an average patient debt of $1,100 — though some debt was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

With the massive transaction, millions of people will be protected from being targeted by collectors.

What’s the nuance? It’s important to note that the medical debt crisis in the U.S. now touches an estimated 100 million people nationwide. So while it’s incredibly good news (and so worth celebrating!) that 20 million people will have this burden lifted, so many others still need help.

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More Good News

​In a landmark trial, Chevron was ordered to pay more than $740 million to restore coastal wetlands in Louisiana. In the first of dozens of pending lawsuits in the state, a jury made a precedent-setting ruling that the company was accelerating land loss across the state’s rapidly disappearing coast.

​An all-time record 736,000 sandhill cranes arrived in Nebraska during the peak of spring migration. The cranes all appear to be healthy, too, after wildlife biologists were on high alert after bird flu led to the death of more than 1,500 birds in Indiana.

​Thailand became the 68th country in the world to ban corporal punishment of minors. UNICEF Thailand stressed the importance of the government also backing the ban with educational campaigns aimed especially at families, where using force as a teaching method is widely accepted and practiced.

​A startup in Mexico is tackling a coastal city’s plastic waste problem by converting it into fuel. Petgas collects especially hard-to-recycle plastics like bottle caps and Styrofoam, and for every ton it collects and converts, it mitigates 1.5 tons of carbon. (Video)

Animals

Shelters across the U.S. are celebrating ‘kitten season’ with foster workshops, rescue tips, and ‘kitten baby showers’

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Science & Animals

After 10,000 years of extinction, scientists genetically engineered a dire wolf — the breakthrough could help save threatened species

From Venezuela to Canada, dire wolves roamed across the continent ​​until they went extinct 10,000 years ago. Now, using ancient DNA, scientists have genetically engineered the first dire wolf to live since their extinction.

While Colossal Biosciences has other species, like the wooly mammoth and the dodo, on its de-extinction wish list — their efforts are helping inform how we can protect endangered and other at-risk species right now, like the red wolf.

Experts estimate that 30% of Earth’s genetic diversity will be lost by 2050, and Colossal scientists say that genetic engineering is a vital tool to reverse this, helping humans undo “some of the bad things that we’ve done to the world already.”

→ Read more​

More Good bits

🐾 Incarcerated folks are giving back to the community. (TikTok)

😷 A homeless nurse left a job interview with a paycheck and so much more.​

🐢 Congrats to the new parents!

🗳️ Paris in politics: That’s hot.​

🐠 Fish love offshore wind farms, too.

What’s good?

I have yet to benefit from the kitten distribution system ... but maybe this kitten season will be my year!

Are you a proud cat parent?

I wouldn’t be mad if you sent photos, too 😍

— Megan