Good News Stories of 2026 So Far

Updated September 15, 2026 · 11 min read

Good news rarely arrives as a single dramatic moment. It tends to show up as a certificate from the World Health Organization, a line in an energy dataset, or a bird count on a remote island. Here are the most significant positive developments of the year so far, grouped by theme.

Every item below was checked against a primary or major source, and every figure is quoted from that source. If you want fresh stories rather than a yearly roundup, see good news today or this week's good news.

Jump to a section:

• Health and medicine
• Environment and climate
• Science and technology
• Human progress
• Animals and nature
• Kindness and community

Health and medicine

2026 has been a strong year for disease elimination, the slow, patient work of making an illness disappear from a country for good.

Guinea worm fell to just 10 human cases worldwide

The Carter Center announced that only 10 human cases of Guinea worm disease were reported in 2025, the lowest number ever recorded and down from 15 in 2024. Four cases were in Chad, four in Ethiopia, and two in South Sudan.

Source: The Carter Center, January 2026

Chile became the first country in the Americas verified as free of leprosy

WHO verified that Chile has eliminated leprosy, making it the first country in the Americas and only the second in the world to reach that milestone. Chile's last locally acquired case was in 1993, and free multidrug therapy has been available there since 1995.

Source: World Health Organization, March 2026

The Bahamas eliminated mother-to-child transmission of HIV

WHO certified the Bahamas after the country brought mother-to-child transmission of HIV below 2% and kept antenatal care and HIV testing coverage for pregnant women at 95% or higher. Care was offered to every pregnant woman regardless of nationality or legal status.

Source: World Health Organization, April 2026

The first gene therapy for a genetic form of hearing loss was approved

The US Food and Drug Administration approved Otarmeni for severe to profound hearing loss caused by variants in the OTOF gene. In the clinical trial of children aged 10 months to 16 years, 80% of the patients evaluated for effectiveness experienced improved hearing.

Source: US Food and Drug Administration, April 2026

Trachoma is now eliminated across WHO's entire South-East Asia Region

WHO validated Tunisia in May and Timor-Leste in September as having eliminated trachoma, the world's leading infectious cause of blindness, as a public health problem. Timor-Leste became the 33rd country to do so, and it was the last country in the South-East Asia Region with suspected endemic trachoma.

Source: World Health Organization, September 2026 (see also Tunisia, May 2026)

HPV vaccination linked to zero cervical cancer deaths among young women in England

A study published in The Lancet found that no women aged 20 to 24 in England died of cervical cancer between 2020 and 2024, in a group where vaccine coverage was about 90%. Researchers at Queen Mary University of London estimate the vaccination programme has prevented around 200 deaths.

Source: Queen Mary University of London, June 2026

A new pancreatic cancer drug nearly doubled survival in its trial

The FDA approved daraxonrasib, sold as Rasonque, for adults with metastatic pancreatic cancer, one of the hardest cancers to treat. In the trial, median overall survival was 13.2 months with the drug compared with 6.7 months with standard chemotherapy. The FDA described it as a first-in-class targeted therapy.

Source: US Food and Drug Administration, August 2026

Bhutan eliminated dog-transmitted human rabies

WHO validated Bhutan as the first country in its South-East Asia Region to eliminate dog-transmitted human rabies as a public health problem. The country has recorded no human deaths from dog-mediated rabies since June 2023, after more than a decade of dog vaccination, surveillance, and free post-exposure treatment in all 20 districts.

Source: World Health Organization, September 2026

Environment and climate

The climate picture is still serious, which makes these measurable turning points worth knowing about.

The High Seas Treaty came into force

The UN agreement to protect marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction became legally binding on January 17. Those international waters cover nearly two thirds of the ocean, and the treaty gives countries a shared framework for protecting them.

Source: Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, January 2026

Renewables overtook coal as the world's largest source of electricity in 2025

Ember's annual review found renewables supplied 33.8% of global electricity in 2025, passing coal at 33.0% for the first time in about a century. Solar generation rose by a record 636 terawatt hours, and fossil fuel generation fell by 0.2%, which Ember said was the first decline driven by a structural shift to clean power rather than an economic crisis.

Source: Carbon Brief, April 2026

Mangrove forests are growing again worldwide

A study in the journal Science, led by researchers at Tulane University and based on four decades of satellite data, found that mangroves are no longer in net decline. Nearly 2,900 square kilometers were lost from the 1980s to 2010, but gains have outpaced losses over the last 16 years, leaving only about a 1% net decline overall.

Source: Tulane University, June 2026

French Polynesia added 520,000 square kilometers of fully protected ocean

French Polynesia announced new full protections around the Austral, Marquesas, and Western Society islands. Once implemented, about 1.4 million square kilometers, or 30% of its waters, will be protected from extractive activities, with separate zones set aside for artisanal fishing.

Source: Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy, June 2026

Science and technology

Artemis II astronauts travelled farther from Earth than any humans before

NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, flew around the Moon on a mission that launched April 1 and splashed down April 10. At their farthest point they were 252,756 miles from Earth, breaking the record set by Apollo 13 in 1970.

Source: NASA, April 2026

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launched

NASA's Roman telescope lifted off on August 30 and is heading to an orbit about a million miles from Earth. It is designed to survey the universe roughly 1,000 times faster than Hubble to study dark matter, dark energy, and planets around other stars, and NASA says it was delivered ahead of schedule and within budget.

Source: NASA, August 2026

AI spotted hidden heart disease in a routine ECG in under two seconds

Research led by Imperial College London and funded by the British Heart Foundation showed an AI tool could identify up to 81% of heart failure cases and up to 90% of a common heart valve disease from a standard ECG. It was trained on 10.6 million ECGs and is now being trialled with 590 NHS patients in London and Bristol.

Source: British Heart Foundation, September 2026

Human progress

These are the slow trends that rarely make headlines. For the longer view, see our look at whether the world is getting better.

Electricity now reaches 92% of the world's people

The UN's 2026 energy progress report found that global electricity access reached 92% in 2024, and that 800 million people have gained electricity and 1.5 billion have gained clean cooking since 2010. The report is also clear that 655 million people still lack electricity and that the pace of progress needs to speed up.

Source: United Nations, June 2026

Children's enjoyment of reading rose for the first time in five years

The UK's National Literacy Trust surveyed 125,375 children and young people and found that 36.1% of those aged 8 to 18 enjoy reading in their free time, up from 32.7% in 2025. Daily reading rose from 18.7% to 20.3%, although both remain well below the levels of a decade ago.

Source: National Literacy Trust, June 2026

Average incomes have more than doubled since 1990 in nine African countries

Our World in Data highlighted Mauritius, Egypt, Cape Verde, Ghana, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda, Burkina Faso, and Mozambique, where average incomes more than doubled over a generation. Poverty rates and child mortality fell in all nine, though the authors note that some other African countries saw incomes decline.

Source: Our World in Data, September 2026

Animals and nature

Species recoveries take decades, so every one of these represents years of patient work. There are more stories like these on our good news about animals page.

The wood stork recovered and was removed from the US endangered species list

The US Fish and Wildlife Service delisted the wood stork, which was listed in 1984 after its population fell by more than 75% since the 1930s. The breeding population is now estimated at 10,000 to 14,000 nesting pairs in about 100 colonies, and the agency has set up a 10-year monitoring plan.

Source: US Fish and Wildlife Service, March 2026

Przewalski's horses returned to the Kazakh steppe for a second year

Five Przewalski's horses, one stallion and four mares from European breeding centers, were released into the Altyn Dala region of central Kazakhstan after a year of acclimatization. It was the second consecutive year of releases, and the goal is a population of 40 to 45 horses in the Turgai steppes by 2029.

Source: Frankfurt Zoological Society, May 2026

The numbat is no longer classed as endangered

The IUCN Red List moved Western Australia's numbat from Endangered to Near Threatened. Its population fell to about 300 animals by the late 1970s and has recovered to between 2,000 and 3,000, thanks to predator control, fencing, captive breeding, and new populations.

Source: IUCN, July 2026

New Zealand's kākāpō population passed 300 after a record breeding season

Ninety kākāpō chicks reached the 150-day independence milestone, lifting the population of this critically endangered flightless parrot from 235 to 325. It was the largest breeding season on record, with 258 eggs laid and 106 chicks hatched.

Source: RNZ, September 2026

Kindness and community

A foster care village designed to keep siblings together opened in California

Together California, the project Christian Bale helped create, opened in Palmdale with 12 furnished homes built so brothers and sisters in foster care can stay together. Nearly $9 million was raised for the village, and residents are due to move in the following month.

Source: ABC7 Los Angeles, September 2026

3,000 trees will be planted across the US to honor the victims of 9/11

The nonprofits 9/11 Day and One Tree Planted launched a year-long project called Together We Grow, remembering the 2,977 people who died. The first tree, a 15-foot willow oak, was planted in Battery Park in New York City.

Source: Good Good Good, September 2026

Rick Steves bought a historic small-town movie theater to restore it

The travel writer bought the single-screen Edmonds Theater in Washington state for $2 million and plans to restore it. Beyond films, he wants the space to be available to nonprofit groups as a community gathering place, saying he does not expect to recoup the money.

Source: KNKX Public Radio, September 2026

Why you might not have heard about these

Most of these stories were reported, but few led the evening news. Progress is usually gradual, and a disease eliminated after thirty years of effort does not feel urgent on the day it is announced. Many people have also started avoiding the news altogether because it feels overwhelming, which we cover in our news avoidance statistics. If you want to follow this kind of reporting directly, these are the best good news sources.

How we chose these stories

We looked for developments that are measurable and significant beyond a single town: disease eliminations certified by WHO, conservation status changes, energy data, medical approvals, and species recoveries. Each item had to happen, or be announced, between January 1 and mid-September 2026, and each figure is taken from the linked source. We left out partisan political wins. This page is updated as the year goes on, so check back for new additions.

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