See what stories caught our attention this week, from small book sanctuaries to waterways kept clean by a simple change in farming practices.

As people across Spain face rising prices, Barcelona’s Energy Advising Points are helping residents to exercise their “energy rights.” ...

When it comes to the US housing crisis, Portland was early to the party. Well over a decade ago, in 2009 and 2010, Oregon’s biggest city had the lowest rental vacancy rate in the country. The years ...

Living Paradigms is a series about what we can learn from the customs and cultural practices of others when it comes to solving problems. It is sponsored by Wonderstruck. Once a month between April ...

In the vast majority of countries, landfills are growing at an unsustainable rate. According to the International Solid Waste Association (ISWA), 40 percent of worldwide waste ends up in open, ...

It’s mid-afternoon along Medellín’s Avenida Oriental, a traffic-clogged road that scythes through the heart of the second largest Colombian city, and Nicolas Pineda is crouched down on his haunches as ...

On an early spring day, Brandon Brownell greeted shoppers as they came into Smart Art and Craft Supplies in northeast Nashville. The shop is a crafter’s paradise. Tables in the front are loaded with ...

The clues are unmistakable. A muddy embankment is covered in webbed, triangular footprints. A tree’s bark has been gnawed on one side, exposing the pale innards of its trunk. But the real giveaway is ...

The merganser ducks and egrets at the Whalen Lake bird sanctuary near Oceanside, California, don’t know it, but they’re trendsetters, swimming in water that has been purified by state-of-the-art ...

Just like clockwork, when feeding time arrives in the late morning at West Blean and Thornden Woods Nature Reserve, a group of trees begins to rustle in the distance. Shortly afterwards, the enormous ...

Happy New Year! And welcome to our annual year-end roundup of the brightest, boldest ways the world improved, evolved or otherwise changed for the better. It’s a randomized bingo-ball tumbler of a ...

Trine Krebs is sometimes called “the leek woman,” or even Miss Dry-Legume, of Denmark. The 48-year-old has for decades traveled around the country as, in her words, a “food inspirer,” proselytizing ...