2024 C.E.

The beach with vegetation in foreground

In a first, the Brazilian city of Linhares grants legal rights to waves

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The city of Linhares, Brazil, has granted legal rights to the waves at the mouth of the Doce River, the first instance in which a government has conferred rights upon part of the ocean. The city is aiming to better protect its coastal waters in the wake of the 2015 collapse of the Fundão dam. The dam held back more than 10 billion gallons of waste at an iron mine upstream, and when it failed, a wave of sludge poured into the Doce River.

Aerial view of Gaza City

More than 350,000 Gazan children vaccinated against polio

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Thousands of families visited health centers to get doses from U.N. medical teams, UNRWA reported. In southern Gaza, more than 152,000 children were vaccinated in Khan Younis city, nearly 8,800 in Rafah, and another 1,000 elsewhere in the south. The promising development follows the successful completion of the first phase of the vaccination campaign in central Gaza earlier this week, which saw more than 187,000 children under 10 receive protection from polio. To date, combined coverage for central and southern Gaza now stands at 354,786 children.

Good news for Indigenous rights and climate

Record number of Indigenous land titles granted in Peru via innovative process

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In a defining moment for the rights of Indigenous peoples in Peru, 37 land titles were secured in the Amazon in record time, from June 2023 to May 2024. This is not only a remarkable land rights victory for the region, but it also marks a significant step towards addressing climate change, reclaiming Indigenous peoples’ sovereignty and rights, and defending territories against external threats. Land titles have proven to be the most effective way to protect Indigenous peoples’ land from deforestation, with titled land experiencing a 66% decrease in deforestation.

Tuna

Maldives drops plan to reopen longline tuna fishing following protests

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Longline fishing for tuna will remain closed in the Maldives, the island country’s president announced on Aug. 29. The decision came after local fishers, conservation NGOs and scientists protested against plans by the administration of President Mohamed Muizzu to reopen longline fisheries for yellowfin tuna and bigeye tuna. Longline fishing has been banned in the Maldives since 2019.

Anchorage

Nurse practitioners can provide abortions in Alaska, judge rules

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A judge has struck down an Alaska law banning qualified nurse practitioners and physician assistants from performing abortions, siding with a legal challenge by a Planned Parenthood affiliate. Alaska Superior Court Judge Josie Garton in Anchorage has ruled that the law violated Alaskans’ rights to privacy and equal protection under the state constitution. The state’s top court found that those rights include a right to abortion in a 1997 ruling, and abortion is legal in the state at all stages of pregnancy.

Trees

Norway’s forests have more than tripled in a hundred years

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Over the course of the last hundred years, Norwegian forests have tripled in size according to a new report. The survey from Statistics Norway shows that forest growth continued for the whole of the 20th and much of the 21st century, but has begun tapering off as spruce saplings planted by schoolchildren in the 1960s are now fully mature and beginning in some cases to die or be logged.

Good news for British climate action

Britain’s reliance on coal-fired power set to end after 140 years

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Home to the world’s first coal-fired power station, opened in London in 1882, the U.K. is set to be the first G7 country to stop using coal to generate electricity, one year earlier than first set out by the previous Conservative government in 2015. In the coming weeks, it will officially close the lone remaining coal-fired plant in the country, a station known as Ratcliffe, near the city of Nottingham.

South Korean flags

‘Major milestone’ immunization campaign begins in North Korea with support of UNICEF

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More than 800,000 children and 120,000 pregnant women will be vaccinated in a nationwide campaign launched on Monday by the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) with the support of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Over four million doses of essential vaccines — including Pentavalent, Measles-Rubella (MR), Tetanus-Diphtheria, BCG, Hepatitis B, and Inactivated Poliovirus Vaccine (IPV) — were delivered to the DPRK in July to kickstart this comprehensive catch-up effort.

Gray wolf population growing fast in California — up sixfold in the past five years

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The first wolf returned to the state after an 87-year absence in 2011, when a young male walked across the border from Oregon. By 2015, the first new wolf pack had re-established, in Siskiyou County. By 2019, there were seven gray wolves in California. Now there are 44 — a sixfold increase over the past five years, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Wolves are now found in nine of California’s 58 counties, in seven packs from the Oregon border to the mountains around Lake Tahoe, and in the Southern Sierra near Bakersfield.

Person touching pregnant belly with hands forming a heart

Aetna to start covering IUI in the U.S.

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Medical insurance company Aetna just announced that it’s going to be providing additional fertility coverage, specifically offering intrauterine insemination (IUI), to all policyholders regardless of sexual orientation or whether they’re partnered. This comes after a settlement agreement from a lawsuit earlier this year which stated that Aetna has to provide such care for LGBTQ+ people. The case, Goidel et al. v. Aetna, was filed in September 2021 and only came to a resolution in May after years of waiting and legal battles.

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