Good News Headlines 3/18/2024
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Places Across The U.S. Are Testing No-Strings Cash As Part Of The Social Safety Net
by Jennifer Ludden, NPR
Christopher Santiago recalls being skeptical the first time he heard about basic income — giving people cash with no conditions on how to spend it. It was 2020, when presidential candidate Andrew Yang pitched it for all American adults, and Santiago thought, “That doesn’t make much sense.” But for a year now, Santiago has been getting $500 a month through one of the largest cash aid pilots in the U.S., and he’s come around. The single dad of three lives in Alsip, Ill., and was one of a whopping 233,000 people who applied for the program in Cook County, which includes Chicago. (There was a lottery to pick the 3,250 participants.)
Left To Rot: How A Prisoner Cleaned Up Panama’s Dirtiest Jail – And Its Inmates
by Sarah Johnson, The Guardian
La Joyita prison, just outside Panama City, was notorious for being filthy, overcrowded and dangerous. It was known as the “stomach of the beast” for those confined within its walls. “We literally lived on top of rubbish,” says Franklin Ayón. “It was everywhere – in the corners, in the corridors,” says Ayón, who was imprisoned for drug trafficking in 2012. “We had to sit with a towel over our head to eat, just so the flies wouldn’t land on the food.” Ayón, an agronomist by profession, came up with a plan. In 2014, he designed a recycling scheme that he named EcoSólidos: prisoners at La Joyita, one of the country’s largest prisons, would collect, separate, recycle and sell waste.
With Medical Debt Burdening Millions, A Financial Regulator Steps In To Help
by Noam N. Levey, KFF Health News
When President Barack Obama signed legislation in 2010 to create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, he said the new agency had one priority: “looking out for people, not big banks, not lenders, not investment houses.” Since then, the CFPB has done its share of policing mortgage brokers, student loan companies, and banks. But as the U.S. health care system turns tens of millions of Americans into debtors, this financial watchdog is increasingly working to protect beleaguered patients, adding hospitals, nursing homes, and patient financing companies to the list of institutions that regulators are probing.
Playing Thriving Reef Sounds On Underwater Speakers ‘Could Save Damaged Corals’
by Ian Sample, The Guardian
Underwater speakers that broadcast the hustle and bustle of thriving coral could bring life back to more damaged and degraded reefs that are in danger of becoming ocean graveyards, researchers say. Scientists working off the US Virgin Islands in the Caribbean found that coral larvae were up to seven times more likely to settle at a struggling reef where they played recordings of the snaps, groans, grunts and scratches that form the symphony of a healthy ecosystem. “We’re hoping this may be something we can combine with other efforts to put the good stuff back on the reef,” said Nadège Aoki at the in Massachusetts.
Crime Is Way Down: 2023 Recorded Likely The Largest Single-Year Drop In Homicides Across US
by Andy Corbley, Good News Network
The FBI’s most recent Quarterly Uniform Crime Report data for Q3 2023 shows that nearly all crime in the US is going down; some to pre-pandemic levels, some to multi-decade lows. This includes a violent crime average, as well as murder, rape, aggravated assault, robbery property crime, burglary, and larceny, with quarterly data showing the largest percentage declines ever recorded for the violent crimes. It rubs against the public perception of rising crime in America driven, some suspect, by more widely distributed media content than ever before. This is particularly true for larceny, or petty theft and shoplifting.
