Headlines...

• Judges have now temporarily blocked the deportation of two Columbia University protesters who are also permanent legal U.S. residents: first, former graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, who is still in ICE custody in Louisiana, and now 21-year-old Yunseo Chung.​
• There’s a solid chance you’ve come across the Wayback Machine in your internet browsing, and now, as the Trump administration removes critical information from government web pages, the nonprofit behind that machine is working to add it all to its archives.

Today’s Top Good News Story

Further helping the city improve air quality, residents in Paris voted to make 500 more streets car-free

In a referendum, residents of Paris voted to pedestrianize 500 more streets in the city as part of the local government’s efforts to reduce the use of cars and improve air quality.

The additional car-free Parisian streets will bring the total number to nearly 700, with another 10,000 parking spots removed in addition to the 10,000 that have already been removed. Residents will help decide which streets will be impacted.

While Paris has made incredible strides, its green infrastructure — including private gardens, parks, tree-lined streets, and more — makes up about 26% of the city, lagging behind the 41% average in other European capital cities.

Why is this good news? Not only does taking cars off the road help improve air quality, but it also improves overall well-being with more people walking, biking, skating, and more. The lack of emissions and traffic also helps people connect more with their neighbors.

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More Good News

​To help protect pollinators, the use of pesticides on U.K. farms will be cut by 10% by 2030. While activists celebrated the news, they’d hoped it would go further, since the EU’s target for member states is to reduce the use of more hazardous pesticides by 50% by 2030.

​A church transformed its vacant land into a massive urban garden, donating 65K pounds of food to people in need. After seeing an abundance of abandoned land and limited access to fresh, healthy produce in its community, Mission of Mary Cooperative now manages a network of six massive urban farming plots across four acres, growing over 75 different varieties of fruits and vegetables.

​Installing safety nets on the Golden Gate Bridge has been shown to reduce suicides by 73% in a year. Studying a period of time before, during, and after the nets were installed, researchers found that there were 2.48 deaths by suicide per month before, 1.83 during installation, and just 0.67 after.

​Leveraging trust built over time, doctors in Atlanta are talking to their patients about the health risks associated with climate change. Hoping to depolarize the issue and break through misinformation, the doctors are explaining how the issue intersects with healthcare, like the impacts of heatwaves, allergies, infectious diseases, and malnutrition from food supply changes.

Animals

Carolina the giant rat is officially retired — she spent years detecting thousands of cases of tuberculosis, saving countless lives

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good progress

Women’s sports bars are expected to quadruple across the U.S. this year

At the beginning of 2025, there were six bars dedicated to showing women’s sports in the entire United States. By the end of the year, there will be almost two dozen.

Already this year, three women’s sports bars have opened, and 14 more are expected to open their doors in the coming months, spanning cities from New York to San Francisco, Cleveland to Kansas City.

The exponential growth of women’s sports bars is happening alongside a surge of support for women’s college and professional sports — leading to more women’s sports events being aired on television, too.

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More Good bits

❤️ Even a 5-year-old gets it: “Powerful people have to show love.”​

📖 Hopelessness is just not an option. (Instagram)

🛝 The secret to getting through tough times? More playing.​

😎 New Zealand has its eye on the prize.

🐾 Adopt a teacup werewolf! Or a Himalayan fur goblin!​

What’s good?

I happened to be in New York City on a Sunday during its “Summer Streets” celebration, and it was magical — so many people biking, walking, running, rollerblading on a massive street normally packed with cars.

What do you think of cities — large or small — closing roads to cars?

I’d love to know how you feel about it!

— Megan