May 11 2026

Good News for Humankind 🌏
​The world's latest positive milestones for climate, justice, peace, health & more

All 50 U.S. states now have rape kit reform laws after 16-year campaign

Rape kit reform just hit a milestone 16 years in the making: with Maine's new law on May 1 2026, all 50 states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico now have at least one pillar of reform on the books.

The campaign began when survivors started writing letters to actress Mariska Hargitay, whose Joyful Heart Foundation later built a research-grounded framework called the Six Pillars — covering mandatory testing, dedicated funding, and a survivor's right to know what happened to their own kit. Before this wave, a person could endure an hours-long exam and never learn if the evidence was tested.

Laws on paper aren't justice in practice yet, but the distance covered shows what survivor-led advocacy can accomplish when it refuses to quit.

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Cameroon’s malaria vaccine cuts child cases 20% in first year

Cameroon's malaria vaccine rollout delivered something remarkable in its first year: nearly 67,000 fewer malaria cases among children under five across 42 high-burden districts, a 20% drop compared to 2023.

The country was one of 13 across Africa to fold the long-awaited vaccine into routine childhood immunization in 2024, part of a coordinated regional push that delivered more than 18 million doses. Among the first to be vaccinated were twins born in January 2024, whose mother says simply that they have never had malaria.

After three decades of development and years of pilot studies, a tool once considered out of reach is now protecting children at scale — and the early evidence suggests it is working.

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Antarctic whale populations are officially rebounding

Antarctic whale recovery is producing scenes scientists hadn't witnessed in over a century. Near the South Orkney Islands in early 2026, researchers aboard a Sea Shepherd vessel watched groups of more than 100 humpback whales feeding together, with blows stretching "from horizon to horizon."

Humpback numbers are now approaching what they were before industrial whaling began, a comeback traced directly to the global moratorium on commercial whaling. The next challenge is already here: industrial krill trawlers, some 100 times the size of a humpback, are working the same waters, and scientists are calling for a 30-kilometer no-fishing buffer to protect the food web.

It's a reminder that ecological recovery is possible — and that protecting it requires the same cooperation that made it happen.

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France launches plan to ditch all fossil fuels by 2050

France just became the first country to set hard deadlines for ditching every fossil fuel: coal by 2030, oil by 2045, and gas by 2050.

The roadmap was unveiled at a conference in Santa Marta, Colombia, where roughly 60 nations gathered to share their own transition plans after a global agreement stalled at COP30 last November. What makes France's plan unusual isn't a single bold target but the fact that it draws one clear line across all three fuels, covering everything from power plants to home heating to transport.

As climate envoy Benoît Faraco noted, almost no other country has named an end date this clearly. In a moment of energy anxiety worldwide, naming the destination is itself a quiet act of leadership.

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Paraguay cut its poverty rate from 50% to under 18% in two decades

Paraguay's poverty rate fell from nearly 50% in 2003 to 17.6% in 2023 — one of Latin America's steepest sustained declines, lifting millions of families into security their parents never knew.

The landlocked country of 6.8 million pulled this off without oil wealth or coastline, leaning instead on two decades of political stability, a diversifying economy, and clean hydroelectric power from the Itaipú Dam. Services and manufacturing have grown alongside agriculture, and 46% of Paraguayans are under 25, entering an economy that has been steadily expanding their whole lives.

The road ahead runs through climate risk, but a country that halved poverty in a generation has shown it can do hard things — a quiet lesson for development everywhere.

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Remember Early Mesopotamian settlements form in the land between two rivers (~10,000 B.C.E.) Around 10,000 B.C.E., something remarkable began along the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Small groups of hunter-gatherers, drawn by fertile soil, reliable water, and a climate still warming after the last glacial period, began to put down roots. What emerged from those first encampments would become one of the most consequential experiments in human organization the world has ever seen. ​Read more​

Imagine Indonesia shuts down its last coal-fired power plant (2039 C.E.) Indonesia shuts down its last coal-fired power plant in 2039, closing a chapter that once defined the archipelago’s energy economy. Enabled by the 2026 ASEAN Clean Energy Financing Compact, workforce retraining programs that moved 400,000 former coal workers into renewable roles by 2034, and falling battery storage costs that made remote solar grids viable by 2031, the transition reshaped the nation. ​Read more​

Take Action 💥

Tell big tech: We need your energy to be clean

From Sierra Club: Big data centers have created a massive surge in energy demand, putting our climate goals at serious risk. Many Big Tech companies claim to be climate leaders, yet their data centers are driving utilities to build gas-fired power plants and extend the lives of dirty coal plants. Without a change in course, today’s data centers will drive pollution for decades to come.

Make your voice heard to hold big energy users accountable by leaving a personal message about why you want big energy users to demand clean energy.

Update from Peter 👋

Hi beautiful people,

I've spent the last several months launching and refining the beta version of Antihero Project. And I just recently finished the initial version of my flagship course The Antihero's Journey.

Now I'm turning my attention to getting the word out and growing the program in earnest.

As part of that effort, I'll send a special email to a subset of this list every week or two. It'll feature program updates, invitations, and exclusive offers and discounts. But it'll only go out to those who want it.

So if you're interested, put yourself on the list here. No charge. No spam. Unsubscribe whenever you want. If not, no worries.

Have a wonderful week,
Peter

Peter Schulte Coach, writer, recovering hustle hero. ​​​

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