The U.S. FDA will now allow abortion pills to be sold at normal pharmacies
Although patients will still need prescriptions to get the pills, this change will drastically widen their access.
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.
Brazil’s President Lula issues six decrees revoking or altering predecessor’s anti-environment-and-Indigenous measures
One of the decrees annuls mining in Indigenous lands and protected areas, another resumes plans to combat deforestation in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes, and a third reinstates the Amazon Fund.
United States Military Academy at West Point to remove Confederate symbols from campus
The moves are part of a Department of Defense directive ordering the academy to address racial injustice and do away with installations that “commemorate or memorialize the Confederacy.”
New York opens its first legal recreational cannabis dispensary
New York’s first legal recreational cannabis dispensary opened with a meaningful twist: the very first retail license went to Housing Works, a nonprofit that serves people with HIV, homeless New Yorkers, and the formerly incarcerated. Revenue from the shop will flow back into those social services, turning a newly legal market into direct support for communities hit hardest by the war on drugs. New York reserved its earliest licenses for nonprofits, people with past marijuana convictions and their families, women- and minority-owned businesses, and veterans, backed by a $200 million equity fund. It’s an ambitious bet that legalization can repair harm rather than just generate profit, and other states are paying close attention.
Manta ray populations are surging in Indonesia’s Raja Ampat archipelago
A new study from the University of Auckland shows that reef manta ray populations in the region have seen up to 10.7% compound annual increase from 2009-2019.
Mammal populations in Europe see dramatic increase over last 50 years
Hunting and habitat loss drove many large mammals in Europe close to extinction. New data shows that many are now flourishing again.
Top British universities offer Afghan women free courses until Taliban lift learning ban
Afghan girls and women with internet access will be able to study more than 1,200 courses from 20 top British institutions at no cost to themselves.
U.S. to eliminate exorbitant cost of prison phone calls
A new U.S. law that will allow the FCC to regulate prison phone calls needs only President Biden’s signature to put an end to a largely unknown, yet famously predatory, prison practice.
In a world first, Japenese scientists use artificial DNA to kill cancer cells
Artificial DNA that turns cancer’s own biology against itself marks a genuine conceptual leap in oncology. Japanese researchers at the University of Tokyo engineered synthetic molecules that lie dormant until they detect a chemical cancer cells overproduce — then restructure themselves into a signal the immune system reads as a threat, destroying the tumor from within. Early tests spanned multiple cancer types, suggesting broad potential. This kind of precision — working with the body’s existing defenses rather than overwhelming them — is exactly the direction cancer medicine has been reaching toward, and this research moves that goal meaningfully closer.
France bans short-haul domestic flights to curb carbon emissions
The European Commission has approved the move which will abolish flights between cities that are linked by a train journey of less than 2.5 hours.