California DISCLOSE Act signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown to combat dark money
Today, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law the landmark California DISCLOSE Act (AB 249), the nation’s most comprehensive election disclosure law.
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.
Uruguay’s 1st transgender senator seated, vows protections
The 34-year-old lawmaker representing the Communist Party assumed her seat in the upper chamber of congress, where she intends to push a law that would let transgender people change their legal identities without having to get a judge’s approval.
Scientists have successfully reversed advanced heart failure in mice
The discovery, which involves “silencing” the Hippo pathway in the heart, could lead to better treatments for those at risk of heart failure potentially ones that could eliminate the condition entirely.
Oregon’s new motor voter law is registering more young people
Since registered voters skew older, Oregon’s automatic voter registration law is correcting the age bias and giving people of all ages access to the ballot.
Philadelphia water rate links payments to household income
City utility prepares nation’s first water rate based on annual earnings.
One of world’s largest marine parks created off coast of Easter Island
Rapa Nui marine protection shows what’s possible when Indigenous communities lead conservation from the ground up. Easter Island’s roughly 3,000 residents voted 73% in favor of the reserve after five years of community consultations, protecting at least 142 species found nowhere else on Earth. Traditional artisanal fishing by hand line remains permitted, honoring the community’s living relationship with the sea — though enforcement across a remote area this vast remains a genuine challenge. As ocean advocates push toward protecting 30% of global waters, this democratically mandated, community-shaped reserve offers a compelling blueprint for what that effort could actually look like.
Cambridge University to accept transgender students at women-only college
Applicants for Murray Edwards College will simply have to identify as a woman at the time they submit their application.
Brenda Hale sworn in as first female president of U.K.’s supreme court
The first woman appointed to be a law lord, in 2004, Hale had to wait until this week for a second woman to join her on the U.K.’s highest court.
Scottish government bans fracking after public opposition
Energy minister Paul Wheelhouse says allowing unconventional extraction of coal and gas would put climate goals at risk
Breast-cancer death rate in the United States drops almost 40 percent, saving 322,000 lives
Breast cancer death rates declined almost 40 percent between 1989 and 2015, averting 322,600 deaths, the American Cancer Society reported Tuesday.