Inspiring News Stories
Excerpts of Highly Inspiring News Stories in Major Media

Below are one-paragraph excerpts of highly inspiring news stories from the major media. Links are provided to the original stories on their media websites. If any link fails to function, click here. The inspiring news story summaries most recently posted here are listed first. You can explore the same list with the most inspiring stories listed first. See also a concise list providing headlines and links to a number of highly inspiring stories. May these articles inspire us to find ever more ways to love and support each other and all around us to be the very best we can be.

She has been at the bedside of over 1,000 people globally in their last moments of life–from her home in the U.S. to Thailand and Zimbabwe. O'Brien, a registered nurse, had an impulse to move into hospice care over two decades ago and has since worked as an oncology nurse and a death doula, supporting those at the end of life. O'Brien's recent book, The Good Death, aims to normalize the realities of death and the need to plan for the end. At the end of life, many people share what they didn't do but knew they always wanted to do, O'Brien says."We all are here for a purpose, and we all have gifts, and when we don't share them and act upon those, that's where the huge regret comes," O'Brien says. Not "dipping into the unknown" or trying something new is a factor of having an abundance mindset, she says. When we consider our time sacred and limited, we are less afraid to take action on something that may excite us. "One of the things we don't know is how many days we have," she says. "When you get that feeling, or you have something that you want to do, don't let your ego, the fear part of you, shut it down." Many people at the end of life regret not being vulnerable enough to let themselves be loved and give love. They often share that they could not reach a level of forgiveness with someone else or themselves, O'Brien says. It's essential to extend ourselves grace, know when to take ownership, and release guilt, she says. O'Brien encourages patients to envision the time they're struggling to let go of and ask themselves if they did what they could in the moment with the information and resources they had.

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A new study from Canadian researchers reveals that near-death experiences transform not just how people view mortality, but how they approach their 9-to-5s. The research, published in the Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, found that after brushing against death, employees frequently reprioritize their professional lives. Many shift away from pursuing money, status, and career advancement toward seeking meaningful work and authentic relationships with colleagues and clients. Near-death experiences (NDEs) are deeply personal experiences that some people report after almost losing their lives. These experiences can include sensations such as floating above one's body, reviewing moments from one's life, encountering spiritual beings, and feeling a profound sense of unity and love. Many participants reported that traditional career achievements and financial success plummeted in importance following their close call with death. The researchers identified six major themes: insights and new realizations, personal transformations, reprioritization of work, job changes, motivation, and changed relationships. Most participants reported profound spiritual insights following their NDEs. These weren't just abstract philosophical ideas but deeply felt revelations that reshaped their identities. Common realizations included beliefs that consciousness continues after death, that there exists a "collective oneness" among all people, and that life has an underlying purpose.

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Since 2014, [French choreographer and dancer Alice Chauchat] has been conducting choreographic research on human togetherness amid all our differences. The result are several choreographic scores that activate paradoxical relationships: distant intimacy, attentive autonomy, impersonal engagement, pleasure and unknown play. Chauchat's work takes place in dance studios, in exhibition spaces, on stages ... and increasingly dance gatherings in public spaces in Copenhagen, Barcelona, and of course Berlin, sprawled across the neighborhoods around where she lives. Strangers invite each other to dance as a practice of being with oneself and being with one another "without thinking about dance as self-expression, but instead thinking of dancing as relating." I ask Chauchat what dancing means to her. "Dancing is a space where we can practice life. Because dancing is observing and being active at the same time. You perceive a situation, and you take part of it. I chose to see dancing as a form of relating. So for me it is never just dancing but always dancing with." She sees dance as a way to offer something to someone, as a form of productive confusion, as a structure of unexamined trust. The dance gatherings, she says, give people a frame and therefore a safe space and opportunity to experience what dance can do: "You are not exposed to being a great dancer or a bad dancer. You are busy with something that relieves emotional pressure."

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division.

Benjamin Ree's "The Remarkable Life of Ibelin" ... is a rare and beautiful thing: a moving documentary that excavates the question of the "real" in a profoundly humanistic and unconventional way. [The film] is about Mats Steen, a Norwegian man who died in 2014 at the age of 25. Mats lived out his final years nearly immobilized, the result of being born with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Mats left behind something for his family to find: the password to his blog. Robert and Trude, Mats's mother, logged in to leave a note for any readers about his passing. What happened shocked them: They began to receive emails from people all over Europe, an outpouring of love and tribute to Mats, whom everyone called "Ibelin." They were players in World of Warcraft, members of the same guild – or "community of friends," as one participant puts it – which called itself Starlight. Mats played as a burly, friendly man he called Ibelin. Mats, as Ibelin, was involved in other players' lives. A significant friend is Lisette, who lives in the Netherlands and met Mats in the game when they were both teenagers. Another is Xenia-Anni, a Danish mother who struggled to connect with her son Mikkel, in part because of his autism, until they met Mats in the game. Gaming wasn't a distraction, but a life, a place where [Mats] could express all the complex parts of his personality that the physical world couldn't accommodate. All of these people and many others tell Ree that they received wise advice from Ibelin that changed their lives. They built real friendships and had real fights and worried about one another.

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A big challenge for democracies today is a decline in trust. The share of Americans who trust government, for example, has fallen from 77% to 22% since 1964. The latest attempt to build trust in the United States is a new online, state-run public forum called Engaged California. The effort aims to prompt, gather, and synthesize conversations about the state's response to the Los Angeles wildfires into reforms. When Taiwan began a similar program in 2014, approval for the government was below 10%. Within eight years, it was 70%, although other factors contributed. The idea of designing civic spaces for civil dialogue has been best expressed in citizen assemblies. Two decades ago, for instance, British Columbia's premier wanted to reform the electoral system but knew few people would trust the government to do it. So he recruited a wide-ranging group of citizens, asking them to devise a solution after listening to a diversity of experts. Citizen assemblies have helped build mutual trust, found Stephen Elstub, professor of democratic politics. "Because [they] require participants to listen to each other's views and debate in an informed and reasonable way," he wrote, "they can improve the quality of democracy." These assemblies have been used worldwide, most notably to help Ireland navigate fraught topics such as abortion. Before they worked in such groups, 72% of participants were dissatisfied with how democracy was working. Afterward, dissatisfaction dropped to 54%.

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In Cape Cod, Massachusetts ... hidden away from the picturesque beaches was the town landfill, including lagoons of toxic waste from septic tanks, which was being left to seep into the groundwater below. So [John] Todd, then a 45-year-old biologist, decided to design a solution. Next to the lagoons, he assembled a line of 15 clear-sided fiberglass tanks, each about the height of a person, and filled them with water containing all the different life forms he could find from local ponds, marshes and streams – plants, bugs, bacteria, fungi, general gunk. The water could be pumped from one tank to the next, and the living matter inside them soon organised itself into a series of different ecosystems. Todd found that he could put in polluted water from the lagoons at one end of the line of tanks and by the time it came out the other end, 10 days later, it was clean enough to drink. "To see that water, and to see all the organisms in the tanks, including fishes, looking and being so healthy, I was just amazed," he says. Todd ... would later discover that various microorganisms were finding uses for the toxins and heavy metals. Todd calls it "biological intelligence". Todd christened his invention the "eco-machine", and spent the next four decades ... applying it to everything from treating wastewater to growing food to repairing damaged ecosystems. Todd founded his own ecological consultancy, Ocean Arks International. It has designed and built more than 100 eco-machine systems to treat problems of pollution, wastewater and food production around the world, from the US to China, Australia, Brazil and Scotland. Todd's eco-machines are cheaper and more effective than industrial alternatives ... and are even capable of treating chemicals that have been impossible to break down using conventional methods, such as grades of crude oil and mining waste. They are also far more sustainable – powered almost entirely by sunlight.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing the Earth.

Perhaps you're in hospital recovering from surgery, as I was only a little time ago. When a friend arrived with a posy of flowers, I found myself smiling for the first time since leaving home. More than ever, we could all use some green relief, as we deal with a world that seems to only grow more anxiety-inducing and uncertain. In most cultures throughout history, medicine and botany have been closely entwined, and gardens have been associated with healing the body, mind, and spirit. Inevitably, the creep of urbanisation saw the garden landscapes of [healing] institutions greatly reduced. There has been a trend towards banning flowers from hospital wards. Reasons include a suspicion bacteria lurk in the flower water, as well as ... patients or nursing staff knocking over vases during night shifts. An explanation for the uplifting effect of those flowers in my hospital room may be found in numerous studies that have shown, post-surgery, patients in rooms with plants and flowers have shorter recovery times, require fewer analgesics, and experience lower levels of anxiety. Partly, it is a response to beauty. Our compulsion to turn towards the natural world is known as "biophilia". [German–American social psychologist and psychoanalyst, Erich Fromm] ... described it as "the passionate love of life and all that is alive", speculating that our separation from nature brings about a level of unrecognised distress. Doctors in some countries are writing green prescriptions, rather than scripts for medication. And not just for mental health problems, but for physical conditions such as high blood pressure.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing our bodies.

Americans throw out about 40% of food annually – a waste of both money and natural resources. Reducing food waste can increase food security, promote resource and energy conservation, and address climate change. The Bay Sate has become a leader in reducing food waste. In fact, it's the only state to significantly do so – to the tune of 13.2% – according to a 2024 study. Massachusetts was among the first five states to enact a food waste ban in 2014. (The others were California, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Vermont.) "The law has worked really well in Massachusetts," says Robert Sanders, an assistant professor of marketing and analytics at the University of California San Diego and co-author of the study. "That's due to three things: affordability, simplicity, and enforcement.'" If food waste were its own country, it would be the third-highest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and the United States. It's also the largest category of waste – at 25% – sent to landfills in the United States. Vanguard Renewables specializes in turning organic waste into renewable energy. The Massachusetts-based company partners with dairy farms to convert food scraps and manure into biogas through anaerobic digestion. Each of Vanguard Renewables' five digesters produces enough energy to heat 1,600 to 3,500 homes per year. Since 2014, Vanguard has processed more than 887,000 tons of food waste in New England, producing enough natural gas to heat 20,000 homes for a year.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing the Earth.

Since the Israel-Hamas war, relationships between some students have been nowhere near brotherly, let alone collegial. Some students just aren't accustomed to contrary or controversial ideas and believe that even hearing them is harmful. What hasn't made headline news is the spike in civil discourse initiatives at campuses. Here's one gauge. At the Institute for Citizens & Scholars, a coalition of College Presidents for Civic Preparedness went from a handful of participants prior to Oct. 7, 2023, to well over 100 afterward. The likes of Harvard, Yale, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor have launched civil discourse initiatives since the deadly Hamas attack that sparked the Israeli invasion of Gaza. One success story is the Dialogue, Inclusion, and Democracy (DID) Lab at Providence College in Rhode Island, run by Dr. Bevely and Professor Nick Longo. "With Mutual Respect" events feature two people on opposing sides of an issue. Panelists don't so much debate as endeavor to foster mutual understanding. In December 2020, Vanderbilt [University's] women's basketball team elected to protest for racial justice by staying inside the locker room during the national anthem. Vanderbilt ... facilitated structured dialogue between the basketball players and military veterans on the Nashville, Tennessee, campus. Some athletes shared experiences of racism and discrimination. Young men and women, some of whom had combat experience, explained why they felt so strongly about serving their country. The culture of civil discourse needs to be rooted in a relationship of trust. "If as a student, I'm challenging something, or I say something controversial, I'm going to have to trust you that you're not excluding me," says [Chancellor] Dr. Diermeier.

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The West African nation of Ivory Coast ... has navigated through two civil wars so far in this century. And it struggles with widespread poverty. Despite all that, it stands out in Africa for its economic progress. Growth in its gross domestic product has lately been 6% to 7% a year. Inflation is low at about 4%. Most of all, it has seen a one-third decline in the percentage of Ivorians living below the poverty line. An underlying cause is an effort by religious and political leaders to build social trust. Interfaith initiatives are frequent. Organizations quickly address misinformation or grievances at the community level to avert wider conflagration. A Christian-Muslim dialogue in January called on "all citizens to promote messages of peace, fraternity, and unity." President Alassane Ouattara himself seems inclined toward pragmatic peacemaking. He took office amid violence that erupted after former President Laurent Gbagbo vehemently contested Mr. Ouattara's 2010 electoral victory. More than 3,000 people died in that civil war, fueled by politicization over a concept of nationality that excludes a large portion of the population. Mr. Ouattara's programs on infrastructure, jobs, and land tenure have targeted previously ignored northern regions susceptible to extremism. But now they're expanding. Other projects aim to serve and "reintegrate" youth. The nation's ranking in a global corruption index continues to improve. Regional and local elections have become more credible.

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For more than two decades, Theresa S. Betancourt has followed the lives of children (now adults) who returned home after being forced to fight in the civil war that ravaged Sierra Leone from 1991 to 2002. Thousands of children unwillingly participated in the violent conflict as soldiers, spies and laborers. Many took part in attacks on their own neighbors and relatives, many faced sexual violence, many witnessed unspeakable atrocities. Sahr ... was kidnapped as a toddler and spent four years with rebel fighters, returned to rejection and isolation. Then there is Isatu, age 12 when rebels attacked her village, capturing her and her sister. Isatu's experience upon her return was much different. Initial support from her family and community, combined with her own motivation, led to more help from an extended network. "Isatu's perseverance generated additional ripples of support, soon to become a self-fulfilling virtuous cycle," Betancourt writes. Isatu is now a doctor. In her new book, Betancourt ... shares what she has learned about the factors that have helped some of these people recover and even thrive. Shadows into Light is both heart-wrenching and heartening. It tells the stories of the trauma these children faced, their reunion with family, their reintegration into their communities, and their ongoing struggles and healing. One research finding is the importance of family, community, and societal and cultural influences on a person's trajectory - what psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner described as "social ecology."

Note: About 160,000 former child soldiers and their families have been "reintegrated" into Nigerian society, according to estimates by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Explore more positive stories like this on healing the war machine.

In September 2015, I was unemployed, heartbroken and living alone in my dead grandad's caravan, wondering what the meaning of life was. I discovered an intriguing project carried out by the philosopher Will Durant during the 1930s. Durant had written to Ivy League presidents, Nobel prize winners, psychologists, novelists, professors, poets, scientists, artists and athletes to ask for their take on the meaning of life. I decided that I should recreate Durant's experiment and seek my own answers. "I agree with the scholar of mythology Joseph Campbell, that it makes more sense to say that what we're seeking isn't a meaning for life, so much as the experience of feeling fully alive," [replied journalist Oliver Burkeman]. "There are experiences that I know, in my bones, are "why I'm here" – unhurried time with my son, or deep conversations with my wife, hikes in the North York Moors, writing and communicating with people who've found liberation in something I have written. I would struggle, though, if I were to try to argue that any of these will "mean something" in some kind of timeless way. What's changed for me is that I no longer feel these experiences need this particular kind of justification. I want to show up fully, or as fully as possible, for my time on Earth. That's all – but, then again, I think that is everything. And so I try, on a daily basis, to navigate more and more by that feeling of aliveness – rather than by the feeling of wanting to be in control of things, which is alluring, but deadening in the end."

Note: Read the full article at the link above to explore the beautiful range of diverse responses about what gives people meaning in life. Explore more positive human interest stories.

Tina imagined the sound of Ira's key in the door, and then she realized she would never hear that sound again. It had all been stolen from her. Someone would have to pay the price. "Whoever killed my son," she said, "they were gonna get it." In the days after Ira's death, there were other things besides retribution to keep Tina busy. Tina had wondered for a while about $50 that disappeared from her bank account. Then a woman approached Tina at a vigil for Ira and told her a story. Her boyfriend had been beating her, and Ira found out, and he gave her $50 for a bus ticket so she could get out of town. Turned out he had his own little ministry. And Tina continued that ministry: listening to Ira's friends, having them over for lunch or dinner, occasionally giving someone a place to crash. She thought less and less about revenge. That December, a grand jury indicted two men for the murder of Ira Hopkins. On October 27, 2017, following guilty pleas, [Jy'Aire Smith-Pennick] appeared in court for his sentencing. Almost seven years passed from Jy'Aire's sentencing until the day Tina saw him in person again. "I'm in prison for participating in a murder," he would later say. "And the mother of this man is here, present, on behalf of me, watching me receive my degree." When Jy'Aire gets out, he plans to study sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. He and Tina will work together on the IRA Foundation, teaching at-risk kids that there are better options than drugs and violence.

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By the time I was 24 years old, my life was in complete shambles. I had long-standing substance abuse problems. I sold drugs and trafficked guns. My addiction and illegal business culminated in an incident in which an innocent bystander was killed. I was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to just under 30 years to life. Once in prison ... I lost even more of myself in drugs, violence and jailhouse politics. I knew that I had to change, but I didn't think it was possible. Furthermore, I didn't know how to start. Then one day, at age 30, I did the most benign-seeming thing that changed everything: I quit drinking soda. I had read some articles about how soda can contribute to health issues like diabetes and obesity, and how it can weaken tooth enamel. This was the first time in my life that I had made that kind of change. Quitting soda was my step one. That simple act allowed me to trace the catastrophic outcomes of my life back to my lack of self-discipline, and it convinced me that change was possible. Step two was to make more behavioral changes related to self discipline, like lifting weights and learning to play chess. By choosing relatively minor changes at first, and implementing them incrementally, they were easy for me to sustain. This led to step three: My new behaviors becoming habits, and those habits elevating my level of self-discipline. This elevation allowed me to tackle more significant behavioral changes like quitting smoking and drugs.

Note: Explore more positive human interest stories and find out how people are repairing criminal justice.

Community currencies – alternative forms of money sometimes also referred to as local or regional currencies – are as diverse as the communities they serve, from grassroots time-banking and mutual credit schemes to blockchain-based Community Inclusion Currencies. Local currencies were common until the 19th century, when the newly emerging nation states transitioned to a centralized system of government-issued money as a way of consolidating their power and stabilizing the economy. Far from being a neutral system of exchange, a currency is a tool to achieve certain goals. Inequality and unsustainability are baked into our monetary system, which is based on debt and interest with practically all the money ... being created by private banks when issuing loans. Well-designed community currencies eliminate two main sources of financial inequality: money's perceived inherent value and the interest rates, which both incentivize people to hoard their money. Like the pipes that bring water to your house, money is the conduit that gives you access to goods and services. The value of money is created in the transaction. In 2015 it was estimated that almost 400 of them are active in Spain alone, and across Africa blockchain-backed systems, like the Sarafu in Kenya, help underserved communities do business without conventional money. Elsewhere, local currencies like the Brixton pound in the U.K. or BerkShares in Massachusetts are a way to keep money in the community, buffering it against the pressures of a globalized economy.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on reimagining the economy.

In 2015, [Jo] Nemeth had quit her community development job, given the last of her money to her 18-year-old daughter Amy and closed her bank account. "I was 46, I had a good job and a partner I loved, but I was deeply unhappy," Nemeth says. "I'd been feeling this growing despair about the economic system we live in." Her "lightbulb moment" came when her parents ... gave her a book about people with alternative lifestyles. "When I read about this guy choosing to live without money, I thought, ‘Oh my God, I have to do that!'" The first thing Nemeth did was write a list of her needs. "I discovered I really didn't need much to be comfortable. Then I just started ... figuring out how I could meet my needs without having any negative impacts." For the first three years, Nemeth lived on a friend's farm, where she built a small shack from discarded building materials before doing some housesitting and living off-grid for a year in a "little blue wagon" in another friend's back yard. Instead of paying rent, Nemeth cooks, cleans, manages the veggie garden and makes items such as soap, washing powder and fermented foods. And she couldn't be happier. She soon started tapping into the "gift economy" more deeply, giving without expecting anything in return, receiving without any sense of obligation. "That second part took a while to get used to," she says. "It's very different to bartering or trading, which involves thinking in a monetary, transactional way: I'll give you this if you give me that. I actually feel more secure than I did when I was earning money," she says, "because all through human history, true security has always come from living in community and I have time now to build that ‘social currency'. To help people out, care for sick friends or their children, help in their gardens. That's one of the big benefits of living without money."

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Believing that a wallet will be returned if dropped in public is one of the most important indicators of well being and happiness. In fact, it's 7 times more impactful that doubling your income, according to the World Happiness Report 2025 just released this week. Jeffrey Sachs conceived of the report that would measure wellness in 2012 and Gallup began interviewing people in 150 countries, and compiling those comparisons every year. While analyzing the results for 2024, the researchers found that belief in the kindness of others is much more closely tied to peoples' happiness than previously thought. For instance, evidence across the world from the perceived–and actual–return of lost wallets shows that people are much too pessimistic about the kindness of their communities compared to the reality. The actual rates of wallet return are around twice as high as people expect. Believing that others are willing to return your lost wallet is shown to be a strong predictor of population happiness–and the Nordic nations once again top the ranking of the world's happiest countries. They also rank among the top places for expected and actual return of lost wallets. "Human happiness is driven by our relationships with others," said Lara Aknin, a professor of social psychology and one of the report's editors. "Investing in positive social connections and engaging in benevolent actions are both matched by greater happiness."

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"BACA" stands for Bikers Against Child Abuse. BACA is an organization, or corporation, not to be confused with a motorcycle club, whose impact statement reads, "No child deserves to live in fear!" BACA is much more than a group that gets together to ride motorcycles. BACA members' sole purpose is to do all they can to create a safer environment for abused children, according to Tyson "The Kidd" Hamilton, BACA's Utah State President. BACA members are ready at any time and any place to support children who have been abused. Members work with local law enforcement and other officials to protect children from further abuse. They consider children to be a part of their organization. They form friendships with the children to let them know they have someone in their corner, even if it's just a few bikers. The children they empower get to choose their own road name when they receive a vest with a kids' patch on the back that states "empowered." Members of BACA will attend court, visit families where they feel safe, and respond to the child's needs when they are in fear. Although BACA members don't condone violence or physical force, they are always prepared to protect abused children from further abuse. "We go to court with children, because when they are testifying, they're scared," Hamilton explained. "We give kids support at their homes 365 days a year, 24/7. If they call us at 2 a.m. and they're scared, we are going to respond. We are going to help that child."

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Revving their engines, the Bikers Against Child Abuse love to ride, and they love to make a difference by helping children who have been abused. It is about giving them back some of the power balance that has been stolen from them, giving them back some of the childhood that has been stolen from them," says Bikers Against Child Abuse‘s Tom Goudreau, whose road name is ‘Motown'. The Bikers Bikers Against Child Abuse – BACA for short – has chapters all over North America and around the world. Children they help are welcomed in a special ceremony and they can reach out for help whenever they need it. "They get a road name like we have, and two primaries who will be responsible, 24/7, for that child whenever they need it," Motown says. "We'll be there at three o'clock in the morning, if necessary." It's something Motown wishes he had had as a child after being abused by a family member. "A lot of us are survivors," he says. "The number one thing that people say to us around the world is, I wish you were there when I was a kid. That's usually with a tear in their eye. Child abuse is epidemic. We need to face the facts. This happens everywhere. That's why we're in 19 countries around the world because child abuse is everywhere." "It's tough when you see a small child who's wounded, needs help, but when you see them, change from that small child to somebody who's empowered, it's the best feeling in the world," [a member] adds.

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When you are a child who has been abused by people who are supposed to protect you, how do you feel safe? That question is the heart of Bikers Against Child Abuse International (B.A.C.A.), an organization dedicated to creating "a safer environment for abused children." With specific training and extensive security checks, the frequently big and burly members of B.A.C.A. serve as protectors of chid abuse survivors. They take a photograph with the child, which the child keeps to remind them that they have family to call on. They serve as escorts when kids feel frightened to go somewhere. They show up at court hearings to help kids feel less intimidated. And check out the B.A.C.A creed to see how dedicated these folks are to this work: "I am a Member of Bikers Against Child Abuse. The die has been cast. The decision has been made. I have stepped over the line. I won't look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still. My past has prepared me, my present makes sense, and my future is secure. I'm finished and done with low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tamed visions, mundane talking, cheap giving, and dwarfed goals. I no longer need pre-eminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits, or popularity. I don't have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded, or rewarded. I won't give up, shut up, let up, until I have stayed up, stored up, prayed up, paid up, and showed up for all wounded children."

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