China bans fishing in depleted Yangtze River for 10 years to protect aquatic life
The ban will be applied at 332 conservation sites along the river. It will be extended to cover the main river course and key tributaries by January 1 next year.
Today (2017 C.E. - 2025 C.E.)
This archive spans the years 2017 through 2025, a period marked by rapid advances in clean energy, medicine, technology, and social equity. It collects documented breakthroughs, policy wins, and scientific achievements from the present era. If you want evidence that progress is real and ongoing, this is where to look.
Every county in Pennsylvania will have new voting machines with paper trails in 2020
“The shift from paperless [electronic] machines to having individual paper ballots is a sea change,” said the policy director of the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security. “It’s great, it’s huge, it was necessary.”
U.S. FDA approves pancreatic cancer treatment shown to double patient lifespans
The drug Lynparza was developed by AstraZeneca and Merck as a maintenance treatment for patients with a specific gene mutation whose cancer spread beyond the pancreas.
Indian Railways records zero deaths in 2019 for the first year ever
While between 1990-1995 an average of more than 500 accidents took place every year, a decade later between 2013-2018 only an average of around 110 accidents took place every year.
Pakistan saw 31% reduction in terrorism in 2019
In its annual report, the Center for Research and Security Studies said that a 30.71 per cent drop in fatalities was observed in 2019, down from 980 last year to 679 this year.
Illinois governor clears thousands of marijuana convictions
Illinois’ governor granted more than 11,000 pardons for low-level marijuana convictions, describing the step as a first wave of thousands of such expungements.
Israel green lights hundreds of wind turbines in north
Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz vowed that Israel will move into a coal-free era of power production by the end of 2025, five years earlier than originally targeted.
Palau becomes first country to ban ‘reef toxic’ sunscreen
The International Coral Reef Foundation said the banned chemicals were “known environmental pollutants – most of them are… incredibly toxic to juvenile stages of many wildlife species”.
Tunisia becomes the first Arab nation to offer sex education in schools
Tunisia will become the first country in the Arab world to introduce sex education at schools, the executive director of the Tunisian Association of Reproductive health said.
U.K. renewables outperform natural gas for first quarter ever
In the third quarter of 2019 renewable energy sources provided a record 38.9% of the country’s electricity — exceeding natural gas for the first time ever, which provided 38.8%.