Yes, there are some good news stories, but they only involve very small groups. Life goes on; there are births, graduations, weddings and other fantastic news, but it doesn't reach the wide world as much, even with the internet.
Where large groups are concerned the news is mostly bad all over, as you probably already have noticed.
Many people put their hopes in one political party or the other to save the day. When their own party is in power they often believe things are going well. The truth however is that things have been getting continually worse for over forty years whichever party is in power. One way we know that is by the national debt. Politicians are able to create the illusion of prosperity by excessive government borrowing, that is exactly what has been happening, yes even during the Trump administration, and is still happening. While things are bad now, it should be no surprise, they have been going bad for a long time. Furthermore, the problem is not so much how bad things are today, bad enough as that is, the problem is that neither party knows how to turn things around. The problem is that things are going to get even worse.
I had hoped to have a large number of investigators by now to conduct surveys so I can predict the outcomes of elections. That hasn't happened, so I can only guess. Even large, established news organizations can only guess in these troubled times. I can however predict that things are going to get much worse no matter which party does best in November.
I noticed trouble over a decade ago in that the disciplines of religion and science were being commandeered by people with learning deficiencies. On one side are people who take the Bible literally, even though the Bible itself does not require that. On the other side are people who believe science has explained the origin of life to the exclusion of agencies beyond our current catalog of "natural" agencies, even though neither Darwin nor later science claims to know the origin of life.
It would be a serious mistake to think the Republican Party as it stands today is going to argue successfully against science, or anything else for that matter. Even with all their rhetoric against the high costs of health care and now against covid policies, they have not brought costs down, even when they had the House, Senate and the presidency.
The problem on both sides is a simplistic world view based on a blind faith in "authority." Perhaps a better term would be "herd" since neither party likes authority all that much. Yet, for some people reality is whatever Donald Trump says it is. For other people reality is whatever Greta Thunberg says it is. They really have no other means to decide what is real. All they have is stomping and shouting. That is the problem.
Current hopes of the Republican Party seem to be dissatisfaction with the economy and a somewhere perceived need to further restrict abortion. It might appear counter intuitive that the Republicans can or would bring prices down, but it is possible. It is however not likely with Donald Trump. Abortion is an entirely different problem and not likely to save the economy either, whatever anyone does with abortion.
Problems the Republicans are likely to encounter in their attempts to restrict abortion include the lack of consensus when life begins. While there are some arguments that life begins at conception, that the Bible says so is not one of them. The Bible does not say so.
If life does begin at "conception" that becomes a problem for the use of birth control pills. Among the various ways they work is to alter the lining of the uterus so that an embryo cannot attach. The serious question then becomes whether that is just as bad as an abortion. It can be difficult to discover the order of microscopic events. A good question is whether conception can "complete" unless attachment to the uterus occurs. Another good question is how often embryos fail to attach though no contraceptive measures are taken. Without certain answers to these questions government intervention is not wise.
My foremost concern is the decision in 2007 in Kitzmiller v. Dover that attempted to settle the "Creationism v. Evolution" argument in favor of evolution. I have mentioned here how both sides in that conflict are usually very mistaken. To believe that life began when lightning struck mud is absurd and people are succeeding in "science" who should not. The people succeeding in religion are not much better, being unable to counter. The Trump base is especially inept at the biology and the math, which is the reason they never really tried, and why they still cannot understand whether they should try. It only confuses them when it is mentioned that "evolution" is nothing more than extreme and prolonged "breeding" and people had been breeding plants and animals for centuries before the Bible was compiled. Breeding is employed in the story of Jacob tending Laban's flocks. There is no "fixity of species" in the Bible though that has been claimed. While "evolution" does make some sense, even in the Bible, it cannot explain the origin of life at the very first though. "Science" overrates itself.
How will opening the discussion on the origin of life help the economy? Probably not immediately, to be honest. However eventually by granting more honorable and scholarly people some more time at the podium could lead to sensible solutions to a variety of problems.
Then too, and soon enough when the people who typically fail religion and science give up trying to use "votes" to win their arguments, that could mean rather dramatic improvements in both parties. Many issues in life are not properly solved by voting anyway. There is no voting in science, for example. Most, if not all, religious denominations draw a line beyond which the will of the deity may not be crossed. There might be some voting, but it has limits. Christianity is a most peculiar religion in that regard. Many people who believe very different, and even opposite, things all call themselves Christians. Some of them are obviously blithering idiots. There was a college professor who seemed to believe that if enough people believe something and too few oppose them they can make anything happen just by thinking it. Some people in their intellectual laziness treat Democracy as being able to alter the foundations of reality.
At one time it was hoped that the internet would bring democracy to a higher level in that a majority could quickly settle every little detail without waiting for elections. That has gone terribly wrong since most things are not best decided by voting.
The Republican party has been "right" for many years in that there are problems government is not well suited to solve. Abortion and marriage are not well managed by government, and yet those are the areas the Trump base seems determined to run by government. Force of government is the only means the Trump base has to solve anything. People with only hammers can tend to see all problems as nails.
Should the Republican Party finally realize Trump is not helping at all and get back to limiting government to managing those things it is suited manage, there is hope for the future. Neither religion nor science is a bad thing when well disciplined, and both are required for the advancement and flow of society.
Part of it that might be somewhat my fault is that I opened the discussion of the advantages of blind faith. I noted that blind faith can save the time, resources and heartache of trying bad ideas over and over. Although I was careful from the beginning to add that it requires good leaders to work properly, too many have proceeded without heeding good leaders.
What happened to the abortion issue? How is it the Republicans are pulling forward in the closing days before the election? First of all they are not pulling ahead. The advantage the Democrats had immediately following the Dobbs decision has turned back to the same dead heat it has been for decades. Why? It might well be something I noticed over a decade ago and wrote about on this website and is still here. That is the "curious incongruity" over gun rights and abortion rights. If crime is eliminated to the point people no longer need guns, then without the crime of rape the strong need for abortion disappears. Few people read it or understood the point. The issue has obviously returned to the public arena lately, and many are not prepared having ignored me.
When Democrats realized that banning abortion cannot work unless rape is eliminated and that requires a "supercop" of surveillance that would at the same time give them an argument to take guns away, they decided they were not as much for abortion as they thought. Not everyone is apprised of the connection yet, but enough people do seem to be going that way.
Of course almost everyone is aware that there is no surveillance supercop now since there is so much crime, but many young people who grew up with the internet like to believe one is possible within a few years. A reason there might never be one is not so much the ridiculous costs of monitoring the edges of populated outdoor areas, or putting cameras in wombs, as it is deciding who will be in charge of such power. Video and photographic evidence have not been the most dependable till now, although they can help where there is plenty of other evidence. That might never change. When parents tell children they better be good or the internet will catch them, the parents do exaggerate. Most of that hope is from people too ignorant of real security such as is possible on the internet and in the real world. It is not like a victim has to proof rape anyway since that would take too long. If she says she was raped it would be necessary to prove she was not raped, which is different and much more difficult proof.
Probably none of the proponents of the grand scheme of surveillance realize that birth control pills are a problem if life is considered to begin so soon, and birth control pills might be banned next. I doubt they are ready for that argument either.
The problem is that too many people on both "sides" have lost touch with reality. Their only connection to the real world is through their blind faith in some party or other group; whatever Trump says, whatever Thunberg says, whatever the internet says. Some Republicans do not believe the events of January 6, 2021 should be a problem for Trump. At first they blamed it on Democrats posing as Trump followers. Of course the Select Committee Hearings showed Trump largely complicit, and to a great fault. Now what's the story? Should we believe the vice president has the power to tell states how they must allocate their electoral votes?
Democrats are no better. Although at some time in the very distant future fossil fuels will run out, Democrats, in their unqualified panic, have tried bad solutions. That just burns up more fossil fuels than necessary.
In reporting the temperature of planet has changed by about two degrees it is never reported what the margin of error might be. Democrats do not realize how worthless a statistical measurement is without the margin of error because they are neither scientists nor statisticians. I even saw a program on public television that marked the levels of carbon dioxide on the whole planet over time by measurements taken from ice at one and only one site!
Trying to tear down opponents seems to be the strategy of the times rather than presenting ready made better plans. It can be important to point out flaws in candidates, but where are the better choices? What are we supposed to do about that? It is typical of amateurs to argue against without having any idea of a solution.
An important first step to solving a problem is to find out exactly what the problem is. Too many voters have no idea what the real problems are. If they think voting for Republicans (under Trump) will solve inflation they haven't been paying much attention the last forty years. They have the attention span of goldfish. Inflation didn't happen just yesterday. The real reason jobs were going to China was that our currency is inflated, China's is not.
It can be a great help in the November elections if you would not try to think of what you want government to force others to do. The purpose of government is not to force anyone to do anything. The purpose of government is to stop others from forcing you to do anything. The proper role of government is to minimize force. Government is generally given a unique permission to apply force, but only toward the purpose stopping the bullies. For the most part that is plain to see, but it is admittedly a very simplified statement of the purpose of government and people will disagree how to apply it in some scenarios. At one time a marriage meant no one was forced to take care of children because their own parents previously volunteered in a public ceremony. Now those ceremonies have lost their meaning.
The "good guys" are not about forcing others to do anything. Just remember that essential point when you vote. Then perhaps we can find a leader who can make that happen. If democracy fails, and it does appear in much mass media it will, there is nothing any better to take its place.
A problem with many atheists is that in the absence of a "god," which things might take the place of a god? Money becomes a god to some atheists and perhaps surprisingly to some "religious" people too. Physical attractiveness, "science," and military prowess also get raised to a godlike stature in many people's lives. Those are the four main false gods.
Of course all those things are not evil in their proper role. Our modern industrial economy would be impossible without money. As long as people don't follow bad advice from the attractive there is no harm. Science is of course a good thing, but when there is blind faith in science it ceases to be science. Military prowess rather famously fails when the gun is taken away for the moment. Persuading people to do what is right in the absence of force is better.
It can take a rather minimal force in overturning Kitzmiller v. Dover to tell "science" (bad science) it has not solved the mystery of life yet, and to stop pretending it has. That should actually open the discussion up a bit. It should give atheists second thoughts on several topics. Should it become necessary to force anyone to do anything, the first thing to be done is to force them to think. The problem might get solved right there.
There is some good news in that the number of people who realize both parties are headed in the wrong direction is growing larger and larger every day. That is the hope, that they will finally come forward and steer the parties in the correct directions.