5 things to be hopeful for in 2013

The federal government's debt may be ballooning. But the personal debt of U.S. households is actually shrinking

Paul Brandus

On New Year's Eve, I alerted you to "5 disturbing trends to watch in 2013." It's a gloomy assortment of troubles, to be sure, and because of their slow-moving speed and complexity, they often get underreported — or ignored altogether — by our mainstream media. That's not to suggest that all is gloom and doom, of course. Also beneath the media radar are many things we can cheer. From a long, rosy list, here are five things to be hopeful about:

1. We're winning the war on heart disease and cancer

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Paul Brandus

An award-winning member of the White House press corps, Paul Brandus founded WestWingReports.com (@WestWingReport) and provides reports for media outlets around the United States and overseas. His career spans network television, Wall Street, and several years as a foreign correspondent based in Moscow, where he covered the collapse of the Soviet Union for NBC Radio and the award-winning business and economics program Marketplace. He has traveled to 53 countries on five continents and has reported from, among other places, Iraq, Chechnya, China, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.