Good News Headlines 9/23/2024
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NPR Exclusive: U.S. Overdose Deaths Plummet, Saving Thousands Of Lives
by Brian Mann, NPR
For the first time in decades, public health data shows a sudden and hopeful drop in drug overdose deaths across the U.S. “This is exciting,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, head of the National Institute On Drug Abuse [NIDA], the federal laboratory charged with studying addiction. “This looks real. This looks very, very real.” National surveys compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention already show an unprecedented decline in drug deaths of roughly 10.6 percent. That’s a huge reversal from recent years when fatal overdoses regularly increased by double-digit percentages.
Landmark Genetics Study Shows Easter Island Population Collapse Never Happened
by Andy Corbley, Good News Network
Our history books are littered with stories that present as lessons and warnings to future generations, and for years Rapa Nui, or Easter Island, was one such warning. Famous for its giant stone heads, or moai, the island is also infamous for the rapid depopulation of their builders, which for years has been believed to be a devastating population collapse resulting from ecocide, or lethal exploitation of the natural environment. Now though, a genetic study published in Nature debunks this long-standing theory. The study was carried out by an international team of scientists led by faculty at the Univ. of Copenhagen.
Great Britain Generates More Than 80% Of Summer Electricity From Renewables
by Michael Riojas, EcoWatch
Great Britain just had its greenest summer on record, with less than one-fifth of electricity coming from non-renewable sources, according to data commissioned by The Guardian. The record comes after the UK’s now-annual Contracts for Difference (CfD) event — a government-funded auction that provides clean energy subsidies for renewable and clean energy efforts — which awarded a record amount of funding for 131 projects, reportedly enough to power more than 11 million homes. This year’s budget, which was approved in July by the newly-elected Labour government, included £1.5 billion in funding — a 50% increase compared to last year’s.
The Farmers Abandoning Big Ag To Grow Mushrooms And Herbs
by Michaela Haas, Reasons to Be Cheerful
By any definition, Leah Garcés considered Craig Watts her enemy. As CEO and president of the nonprofit Mercy for Animals, Garcés has devoted her life to protecting animals. When she met Watts in the spring of 2014 at his poultry farm in North Carolina, he was one those factory farmers she deeply despised. In fact, she was so worried that his invitation to meet was an ambush that she gave her husband the address with the reminder, “If I don’t come back, look for me rotting away in the chicken litter.” Watts had raised over 720,000 chickens in 22 years for Perdue, the fourth-largest chicken company in the US.
‘Sacred’: Cherokee Name In, Confederate General Out For Tennessee’s Highest Mountain
by John Bacon and Tyler Whetstone, USA TODAY
The highest peak in the sprawling Great Smoky Mountains National Park is dropping the name of a Confederate general in favor of its Cherokee name “Kuwohi.” The U.S. Board of Geographic Names this week approved a formal request by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. The effort was started in 2022 by band members Mary Crowe and Lavita Hill, who called the 6,643-foot peak “spiritual and sacred.” “Kuwohi is significant to our people,” Hill told the USA TODAY Network. “This is where our medicine man came, this is where our healers and spiritual leaders came to pray and to get guidance from the creator.”
