Good news only, since 2026 Hand-picked from across the web Verified before it cheers you up
Good News
A man in southern Brazil was surprised to find a wad of cash on the ground in a public plaza with no one around looking for it. Pedro Moro didn’t know it at the time, but he was holding a young construction worker’s enti
Dan Cuthern had been under a Missouri overpass with his dog Bentley for more than a decade — until five women decided to change that.
Fifteen years old and missing for more than ten of them, Buttercup turned up at a Florida shelter — and her chip did the rest.
Twenty-three calves were spotted this season — a hopeful sign for one of the world's most endangered whales.
Science Wins
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM A newly FDA-cleared treatment for PTSD reported 68 percent remission in clinical trials. The best-performing approved medications for the condition top out at around 10.9 percent. The
Science Wins
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Chances are, you’ve got a tube of toothpaste in your bathroom right now. If it’s only going on your teeth, you’re leaving a surprisingly useful cleaning tool sitting on your bathroom
Science Wins
This article is part of The Optimist Daily’s Local Changemakers 2026 series, spotlighting changemakers 30 and under. Earlier this year, on a trip to Dominica to learn about the sperm whales that live in those Caribbean w
The Planet
Researchers are looking to butterflies in the search for coatings without harmful, chemical-based pigments The post The butterfly effect: a brighter way to make paint? appeared first on Positive News .
A student has made six bars from cocoa grown in Reading, where varieties are being developed that could help with climate change The post Who needs a golden ticket? The race to future-proof chocolate appeared first on Po
The Planet
A village in England has created a social care community based on communal living and shared responsibility. Could it catch on? The post What if we stop treating social care like a service? This village shows the way app
Good News
At a small store in Stockholm, there’s a discount if you pay with bad breath. In fact, they’ll give you everything you need: toothpaste, a toothbrush, flossers, and more all for free—provided your breath is sufficiently
Good News
With the help of a hospital CT scanner, scientists have cracked the code to a 400-year-old padlock discovered in a treasure-laden shipwreck on a beach in Wales. A metal detector found the padlock buried in the sand, but
Good News
Thanks to dedicated conservation efforts, sandwich terns have reclaimed a colony England’s south coast 3 years after they were wiped out by avian flu. Today, in what seems like a miracle, the birds have multiplied from 0
The news moves fast; progress moves slowly. Zoom out, and the long trends are some of the best good news there is.
Share of the world living on less than ~$2.15/day. About half the world was in extreme poverty in 1950; today it's fewer than one in ten.
Share of children who die before their fifth birthday. It has fallen in every decade since 1950 — from nearly 1 in 4 to fewer than 1 in 25.
Source: UN IGME / World Bank
Share of adults who can read and write. It has climbed from roughly a third of the world in 1950 to nearly nine in ten today.
Source: UNESCO / Our World in Data
The Good News Meter · this week
