This archive spans one of the most eventful periods in recent history, from 2017 through 2025. Browse more than 4,100 articles documenting scientific breakthroughs, policy wins, social progress, and human ingenuity from the present era. Each story highlights what people and communities around the world are building, solving, and achieving right now.
The trial was so successful the U.S.’s National Cancer Institute (NCI) ordered it be halted early so that the FDA could expedite approval of the therapy to treat stage 3 and 4 Hodgkin Lymphoma.
Under the measure, people with marijuana convictions will have a chance to clear their records by automatically expunging low-level convictions and establishing a review board to determine eligibility for higher-level offenses.
In 2021, China set a goal for renewable capacity — including wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear power — to exceed fossil fuel capacity by 2025, a target that it has hit two years ahead of schedule.
Arizona State University (ASU) will lead the Ākoʻakoʻa initiative, drawing on a funding pool of $25 million to research, conserve and restore degraded corals.
The Icelandic parliament has unanimously passed a comprehensive conversion therapy ban, prohibiting the practice on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.
“From a coal perspective, it has been a disaster,” said Andy Blumenfeld, an analyst who tracks the industry at McCloskey by OPIS. “The decline is happening faster than anyone anticipated.”
The Birds and Bees Protection Act bans the neonic pesticides uses that provide no economic benefits to users or are replaceable with safer, effective alternatives.
Alabama redistricting and voting rights scored a landmark victory in 2023 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to uphold Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, ordering Alabama to redraw congressional maps that illegally diluted Black voters’ political power. The decision surprised many observers who feared the conservative court would further weaken voting protections following its 2013 Shelby County ruling. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the liberal justices in affirming the legal standard protecting minority communities from racially discriminatory district maps. The ruling immediately pressured Louisiana, Georgia, and Texas to address similar redistricting violations.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) has appointed the state’s first out transgender judge and the nation’s first trans man ever to serve on a judicial bench.
In 2021, Yale partnered with UNH to give student-inmates a path to two and four year college degrees. The program is now part of a consortium that includes 15 schools and prison systems across the country.
