Juan Manuel Santos is the former President of Colombia, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and the Chair of The Elders. In 2016, under his leadership, Colombia signed a peace agreement with FARC, the country’s largest rebel group, bringing an end to a conflict that had lasted for over 60 years.

On the eve of the recent elections in Colombia we spoke to him about what it takes to make peace. It’s a question that feels increasingly urgent: there are more armed conflicts in the world today than at any point since the Second World War. President Santos is one of the few living leaders who has actually ended one. He told us what he learned from Nelson Mandela, about his friendship with Pope Francis, and why he still has so much faith in the power of forgiveness.

We also explore Colombia’s environmental leadership, from Indigenous wisdom to the recent Santa Marta climate conference, to the idea that there can be no peace among people unless we also make peace with nature. And along the way, he explains how Colombia helped inspire the Sustainable Development Goals, why cooperation remains humanity’s greatest challenge, and what lessons the world can learn from a country that many once considered beyond repair.

You can listen to the full conversation on our podcast, watch it on Youtube, or read the transcript below.

Listen to the podcast

Amy Rose

President Santos, in doing research for this interview, I came across one of your key lessons from the Navy: ‘Before you do anything, decide where you want to go first.’

If you could give the world a direction right now, what would it be?

Juan Manuel Santos

When I joined the Navy as a recruit, one of the officers called me over and said, ‘Santos, take this small sailboat and learn how to sail.’ I had no idea how to sail. I started going from one side to the other, and he started laughing. ‘Come here,’ he said. ‘I will teach you a lesson. To be a good sailor, and also in your life, in your business, in government, you need to know where you want to go. As a sailor, you can use all the winds, even the winds that are against you, in your favour.’

That lesson was extremely important for me. Many years later, I discovered what I call my port of destination: what I wanted to do in my life. One of the objectives, probably the most important, was to find peace in my country after more than 55 or 60 years of war. That became my port of destination. I also learned that you have to create the necessary conditions to reach that port, and that is how we finally arrived at the port of peace in Colombia.

In the world today, we also need a vision, a port of destiny that will bring back something like the system created after the Second World War: a multilateral system that helps countries not only work together, but also confront the existential threats that have emerged in recent decades.

I am chair of something called The Elders, a group founded by Nelson Mandela 19 years ago. They are former heads of state and Nobel Peace laureates. We use our experience and our moral authority to push good news and hope into the world, because right now the world is going through a very difficult time, with too much uncertainty.

We have identified four existential threats. The first is nuclear war. The risk has increased enormously: more nuclear weapons have been produced, more countries possess them, and the treaties among the great nuclear powers have disappeared. The second is climate change. There are still deniers, but the scientific community has shown us that if we don’t address this problem with much greater effectiveness, we will be in serious trouble. The third is pandemics. We are not prepared for the next one. The last pandemic showed us that without cooperation, the effects are disastrous. We are seeing this right now in Congo with Ebola.

The fourth, which has emerged more recently, is AI. The Pope has just published his Encyclical. It is a document we should all read and absorb. The Elders convened a group of experts a month ago in England. Among them was the Anthropic co-founder who was photographed with the Pope when he presented the Encyclical. Experts from Russia, China, the US, the UK, all around the world: they all agreed that the world needs to cooperate to manage AI. So I think we have a challenging port of destiny.

Angus Hervey

International headlines often frame Colombia through the lens of conflict and drugs, overlooking the remarkable progress of recent decades: millions lifted out of poverty, the care economy in Bogotá, cities like Medellín reinventing themselves with green corridors, the extraordinary efforts to protect the Amazon and expand clean energy.

What lessons does Colombia have to teach the world, and how might those lessons change our course at the international level?

Juan Manuel Santos

There is no conflict that cannot be resolved. For 60 years, fighting the most powerful guerrilla movement in the western hemisphere, everyone thought peace was impossible. All my predecessors failed. But when we began planning very carefully, learning from other peace processes, what worked and what didn’t, we were able to create the necessary conditions for success.

And I think this is a lesson for the rest of the world. In the past 15 years, it is the only peace process in which the UN, which is now under fire, was instrumental and effective. At the beginning of this century, Colombia was considered a failed state. Eighteen years later, it was the country in Latin America with the best indicators in poverty reduction, inequality reduction, environmental conservation, and job creation. The lesson of how this can be done from a position of real difficulty is one that other countries can use. It is possible, through leadership and perseverance.

Angus Hervey

The peace agreement was the defining moment of your presidency. For generations, war had been the backdrop to everyday life in Colombia. What made you believe that peace was possible? Where did that belief come from?

Juan Manuel Santos

I had a conversation with Mandela when he was president. I went to Johannesburg to hand over the chairmanship of UNCTAD, the 8th United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. He was to chair the 9th.

I arrived at the hotel. That morning I turned on the television, the public South African channel, and found myself watching a surreal live programme. For the first time, they were filming the encounters of victims and perpetrators who had never met before, broadcast live for the whole country to see. Some of them embraced. Others struck each other. Others screamed. It was extraordinary. That afternoon, I asked Mandela: ‘What are you doing? Why did you have this programme?’

He sat and began explaining how important it is to reconcile after so many years of war.

‘The way to reconcile is to bring the victims and the perpetrators together and put them on the path of forgiving each other, of working together, of healing the wounds.’

In the middle of the conversation, Desmond Tutu, the Archbishop, came into the room and sat down. He began telling me how important truth was for reconciliation, for healing: that often the victims don’t want reparations. They want to know why the perpetrators did what they did.

I absorbed all of this. At the end of the meeting, Mandela said to me: ‘Colombia and South Africa are very similar countries. You will never take off if you don’t have peace.’ That is when I truly decided: my port of destination was to bring peace to my country. So I started working to create the necessary conditions for the peace process. And in the end, we did it, against the odds.

Making peace is often very unpopular, and I suffered for it. I had been elected president because I was formerly Minister of Defence, a war hero, seen as very effective. When I announced at my inauguration that I was going to make peace with the FARC, everyone, even my family, said: ‘Don’t do it. All your predecessors have failed. You are one of the most popular politicians in the country. You will lose your political capital. Don’t try it.’

But I knew it was the right thing to do. I had to do it. A friend of mine, Shlomo Ben-Ami, who had been Foreign Minister of Israel, told me: ‘I know what you are going through. I know you want to make peace. And I know everyone is telling you: don’t continue, you are good at making war, your popularity is very high, why risk your political capital to sit down with these people? But consider this. You are about to go to your grave, and you look back and ask yourself: if I had taken the risk and been successful, how many lives would I have saved? If you didn’t take the risk, could you go to your grave at peace with your conscience?’

That argument was so powerful that I went to my wife and said: ‘I am going to do it, no matter how unpopular.’ And it was very unpopular. Every peace process comes down to one question: where do you draw the line between peace and justice? How much justice is a society, a country, willing to sacrifice for peace? Wherever you draw it, you will always have people demanding more justice and people demanding more peace. That is why peace processes are so often unpopular. But after a while, people realise it is better to live in peace than in war.

Amy Rose

I had never considered that line before, between peace and justice. This was also a very long process: six years, public scrutiny, setbacks. And once you made that historic agreement, that wasn’t the end either. At a time when multiple conflicts are unfolding around the world, what is the difference between making peace, and building it?

Juan Manuel Santos

I’ll tell you another anecdote. I was a good friend of the late Pope Francis, and we used to joke about football. He was Argentinian, I was Colombian. During the peace process, I used to say to him: ‘Pope Francis, why don’t you come to Colombia? This is a very difficult process. Give me some help, a push.’ And he would joke: ‘Oh, President, don’t worry. I pray a lot for you.’ So I said: ‘Pope Francis, if you have to pray for me, that means I’m in real trouble.’ But he said: ‘No, I will go when you and the Colombian people most need me.’

He came to Colombia after we had signed the peace agreement, after the guerrillas had given up their weapons and been reintegrated into civil society. He described his visit as going to Colombia to push Colombians to take the first step in the most difficult phase of any peace process: reconciliation.

You mentioned peacemaking and peacebuilding. Peacemaking in the Colombian process was fast. Nine months, which was itself a world record. No other peace process had completed what they call DDR, disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration, in nine months. And with something extraordinary: the soldiers and policemen that the guerrillas had been fighting for 60 years were in charge of their safety.

But then came the process of peacebuilding, the real reconciliation, which may take generations. We are, ten years on, still in that process, with something else we also invented. No other peace process had a special tribunal of transitional justice under the umbrella of the Rome Statute, bringing together both parties, with the most responsible judged and sanctioned by that tribunal. That had never happened before.

And it has been difficult. That phase of peacebuilding is the most difficult, but you have to persevere. You have to keep going and show people why it matters. And this is what we are going through in Colombia: former combatants and former military men working together, their sons now working together on common projects, building that empathy between two factions that have been killing each other for so long. It’s difficult, but it’s possible.

Amy Rose

You said you reached the point where you couldn’t in good conscience not make peace, even if it went against what many people in your country wanted. How does it feel to now see the next generation working together?

Juan Manuel Santos

I did what my conscience and my heart told me was the right thing to do, even if I lost much of my political capital, which I am slowly but surely getting back. It was worthwhile. I’m proud I took that decision.

It was very hard. I’ll share an anecdote, because I have told this to President Zelensky and to others living through conflicts: the importance of the victims.

When I started the peace process, a former professor of mine from Harvard came to visit me. ‘President,’ he said, ‘you are entering a very difficult path. You will feel the loneliness of power. There will be moments when you are ready to throw in the towel. Talk to the victims. Ask them what they have suffered. It will re-energise you.’

I was reluctant. I assumed that the victims, precisely because they were victims, would not support the peace process, since transitional justice meant the perpetrators would not go to ordinary prison but would face other kinds of sanctions. But I started talking to them. All around the country they told me the most terrible things: daughters raped and killed, sons tortured. But most of them, not all, said: ‘President, continue. Persevere.’ And I said: ‘But the person who did this is not going to ordinary prison. He will be sanctioned, yes, but not imprisoned. Why are you so generous?’ Most of them said: ‘Because we don’t want others to suffer what we have suffered.’

That was a lesson in life. My faith in the human condition grew.

One story in particular touched me. A woman called Pastora Mira, from the coffee region. Her parents were killed. Her brother was killed. Her son was tortured and killed. One week after she buried her son, someone knocked on her door. A wounded man, asking for help. She helped him, put him in her son’s bed. Three days later, when he had recovered and was leaving, he saw a photograph of her with her son. He fell to his knees. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘don’t tell me this is your son.’ ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Why?’ ‘My God, you have been so good to me. I must tell you. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I was the one who tortured and killed your son.’

She grabbed him by the shoulders. He was kneeling, almost in tears. ‘Stand up,’ she said. He stood. She looked him in the eyes and embraced him. ‘Thank you,’ she said. He couldn’t understand it. ‘Why are you thanking me? I just confessed that I tortured and killed your son.’ ‘Because by asking for forgiveness, by telling the truth, you have relieved me from hating for the rest of my life.’

I took Pastora with me to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. In my speech, I said she was the one who truly deserved it. The victims are the ones who deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

Amy Rose

I think we need to take a breath after that story.

Angus Hervey

President Santos, could we switch to the environment? You have warned that we are destroying the Earth. But it’s also true that there are spots of hope. Deforestation in the Amazon has dropped sharply in recent years, especially in Colombia. The current government is also leading the world on ending new oil and gas exploration and prioritising forests. Is this a dividend of peace, or something different?

Juan Manuel Santos

It is a lesson I learned from the indigenous communities, particularly the oldest in the western hemisphere, who live in the mountains called the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. They are the Kogi community. They have their own culture, their own way of life, their own health system.

When I became president, as a gesture to them, I went up there on inauguration day, before being sworn in to Congress, and asked for their permission to serve, as our older brothers. ‘Yes,’ they said, ‘we give you permission. We know you are going to make peace with the FARC, but you also have to make peace with nature. Because without peace with nature, peace among humans will not last.’ They gave me a staff and said: stop the war, but also make peace with nature. When you finish your mandate, come back.

Eight years later, in 2018, two months before leaving office, I went back. ‘Your mandate has been fulfilled,’ I said. I brought with me the peace agreement, all 320 pages, signed with the FARC. I also brought the document approved at the United Nations: the Sustainable Development Goals, because those were a Colombian initiative. Two very wise young women in my government had come to me and said: ‘Do you want to be a great world leader?’ I said yes. ‘We have this idea. The Millennium Goals expire in 2015. We should replace them with something much more ambitious, with an environmental dimension, where rich countries also have to contribute. What do you think?’ I said it was a great idea. They began the multilateral diplomacy that culminated at the United Nations. A historic moment in the General Assembly: every single country voted in favour of the SDGs.

So I returned to the indigenous community with those two documents, and to give back the staff they had given me. ‘Mr President,’ they said, ‘come back in a week.’ I went back a week later. ‘The peace process with the FARC is perfect. But the SDGs, no.’ ‘What do you mean, no? We negotiated for five years. Every single country approved it. What is wrong?’ ‘It lacks the most important factor.’ ‘What is that?’ ‘The spiritual factor. Unless humans feel that nature has life, that mountains have life, that rivers and seas have life, and treat nature as an equal rather than a secondary citizen, there will never be peace with nature. Go back and continue working for peace with nature, because there will never be peace among humans if there is no peace with nature.’

And we are living that now. What is happening with climate change, the displacement, the hunger, the inequalities it produces: all of this shows that peace and nature are indivisible. But we are also seeing positive examples, technology being used well, sustainable development, regenerative agriculture, all of which must be scaled much faster to change course. I am cautiously optimistic, because I have seen what is possible in Colombia. Deforestation has come down, but it has to come down faster.

Angus Hervey

You mentioned that the indigenous community is in the Sierra Nevada near Santa Marta, and of course Santa Marta has been in global headlines recently for a different reason: it was the site of the first gathering of a coalition of the willing on climate, 60 countries coming together to try to move beyond discussions that have stalled at the UN level. What do you make of the symbolism of that? That the place where you received a mandate to bring humans back into harmony with nature has now hosted something that may unlock our collective inability to act on climate?

Juan Manuel Santos

A happy coincidence. I was there. I was also at COP30 in Belém, where for the first time the scientific community and the indigenous communities came together and gave the same message.

In Santa Marta, the initiative of bringing together what they call the coalition of the willing matters enormously, because we saw in Belém how powerful countries blocked decisions on deforestation and the transition to clean technologies. The alternative path is like what happened with the Mine Ban Treaty: enough countries came together to start rolling the ball and create a snowball effect. I hope Santa Marta does the same.

The indigenous communities were deeply present. I arranged a meeting between some of the conference participants and the indigenous communities, and they were clear: you must do much more. They showed, for example, that the famous glacier in the Sierra Nevada is disappearing. In five or six years, there will be no glacier. No glacier, no water. ‘It is our life that is at stake,’ they said. That is what the world needs to understand: we must be far more conscious of caring for nature. Otherwise, we will all suffer.

Amy Rose

President Santos, we are aware that your country is in the middle of an election. Does a moment like this make a former leader reflect differently on legacy? Which parts of yours feel strong right now, and which feel fragile?

Juan Manuel Santos

When I became president, I took something from Abraham Lincoln. He asked his former rivals in the election to join his cabinet. He wanted to abolish slavery and win the Civil War. I did the same. After winning the election, I invited my former rivals in. I chose aspects of their proposals, incorporated them into my government plan, and made them part of my cabinet. That gave me the political authority to govern, to make reforms, to push the country forward, with very good results.

Right now, in this very polarised world, Colombia is also very polarised. The campaigns have been very aggressive, and I am worried. If you burn bridges, rebuilding them is difficult. Without a minimum consensus on where you want the country to go, it will simply not progress.

My lesson is this: don’t just think about winning. Think about how you are going to govern. The next president will inherit very serious problems that require a minimum consensus among Colombians, across left and right. Many of these issues are not left or right. They are existential, and we have to address them together. This is true not only in Colombia. Many countries around the world are going through the same thing.

One lesson I keep trying to promote: you can always reach an agreement. I quote Mandela often: the most powerful weapon in the world is to sit down and talk. But not to impose your view. Sit down to learn from those who think differently, to understand why they think the way they do. That is how you begin to find common ground, to make the minimum agreements needed to move forward in peace. Colombia needs this. The whole world does right now.

Amy Rose

Sitting with you today, what strikes me most is your ability to listen, which I fear is being lost in the world right now. You also truly listen to young people. So many of them are struggling with climate anxiety, really worried about the world. What would you like them to know?

Juan Manuel Santos

The Elders met in Nairobi two weeks ago. The Irish Embassy organised a meeting with young people from across Africa, and we sat down with them. We sat down to learn from them, not to teach them. It was a remarkable meeting, lasting hours, with the Elders learning from the young people. They had many initiatives, many ideas, including about how to communicate. We are very old-fashioned, and they told us: you have to communicate differently.

Learning from young people, rather than telling them what to do, is something leaders everywhere should pay much more attention to. One of the problems of the world today is the lack of long-term leadership. Leaders worry about the effect of their decisions on the next election, so they don’t take the long view, and many decisions become counterproductive over time. Young people think in the long term, because they are young. Having faith in the future is what moves a society. We should give far more weight to the young.

Angus Hervey

President Santos, one last question. You have seen so much change in your lifetime, in Colombia and in the world. You have been at the helm of many of those stories of progress. But you have also seen things fracture and fall apart.

In this moment, in 2026, what is still possible?

Juan Manuel Santos

Many of the good things are possible if we work together. If we set aside short-term interests and start working together, everything is possible. Take AI, an existential threat for some, but for many the solution to enormous problems. We have to come together and talk. China and the United States, instead of competing, should sit down, as the Pope has been urging, and work out how to use AI for the benefit of the whole world. So many of our problems can be solved if there is the will to cooperate and to talk constructively.

Take Latin America. We have been the continent of the future for decades. Why have we not become an important voice in world affairs? Because of petty fights among leaders. Mexico against Ecuador, Colombia against Bolivia, Argentina against Brazil. If we don’t speak with one voice, we will never be relevant.

The same is true globally. If we accept the logic of spheres of influence, the United States in the Americas, China in Asia, Russia likewise, it will end very badly. We need to sit down and ask: how can we work together? I know it is not easy right now. But we must insist, because that is how things become possible.

Go Deeper:

👉 The Elders
👉 Juan Manuel Santos
👉 The Open Library of the Colombian Peace Process

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Centuries before social media, people were wrestling with misinformation, censorship, information overload and technological disruption. In this first episode of our new podcast, A Short History of Saving the World, join Fix The News founder Angus Hervey and historian Ada Palmer, as they trace the long arc of information revolutions to find out what history can teach us about navigating today’s digital age.

From Machiavelli and the printing press, to modern media platforms, algorithms and echo chambers, each new leap in technology reveals the same pattern running through history's biggest disruptions. The world doesn't break under the pressure of new ideas and communication highways, it adapts, and that may be one of the most important clues the past has to offer us today.

In this episode:
• Is fake news really new?
• What happens when information suddenly becomes available to everyone?
• Why do new technologies amplify both progress and extremism?
• Are social media and the internet following a familiar historical pattern?
• And what on Earth does cantaloupe have to do with democracy?

The top before the top

Pill almost doubles survival time for world’s deadliest cancer

“Having treated pancreatic cancer for 16 years, I actually started crying in clinic.”

That’s just one of the many reactions to results presented at the recent American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in Chicago showing that daraxonrasib, a daily pill, nearly doubled median survival for 500 people with previously treated metastatic pancreatic cancer, from 6.7 to 13.2 months.

This is a big deal. In rich countries, many common cancers have five‑year survival rates above 90%. Pancreatic cancer is the exception: survival is measured in months, and only around one in eight patients are still alive five years later.

Now take a look at this. The green line shows survival probability for pancreatic cancer patients given the new drug; the grey line shows the chemotherapy control group. If you have any familiarity with pancreatic cancer, this chart should make your breath hitch a little. The Guardian / PBS News

However, the bigger breakthrough may be what happened alongside survival. Everyone knows how brutal chemotherapy can be. Patients stayed on daraxonrasib much longer than chemo, reported less pain and better quality of life, and many were still taking it after the trial data had been analysed.

So, how does it work?
Daraxonrasib goes after errors in a group of genes called RAS, which normally help control how fast cells grow. One member of this group, called KRAS, is faulty in more than 90% of the most common pancreatic cancers, and those errors act like a stuck accelerator pedal, telling cells to keep multiplying when they should hit the brakes.

For years, scientists thought KRAS was basically impossible to target with drugs because of its shape – there was nothing to really “grab onto.” Daraxonrasib changes that. It acts like molecular glue, helping other molecules stick to the overactive KRAS protein so it can finally be grabbed and turned off. Even better: it can hit several different versions of RAS, not just one ultra‑specific mutation.

When the results were presented to an audience of over 40,000 people there was an (unheard-of) standing ovation. Take a look at this video; the cheers just keep going.

Daraxonrasib is now available via an FDA early access program, and began shipping to physicians this week (apparently when a therapy cuts death risk by 60% in a historically hopeless disease, regulatory pipelines move at unprecedented speed).

Incredibly, daraxonrasib is not arriving in isolation. At the same ASCO meeting, doctors reported “unprecedented” results from amivantamab, a triple-action jab for head and neck cancer that shrank or erased tumours in 43 of 102 patients, including 15 in which melted the tumour completely; it is now being tested in about 60 trials across lung, colorectal, brain and gastric cancers.

They also shared results for a new tablet called GRWD5769, which helps the immune system see cancer cells instead of letting them hide. Some tumours dodge T‑cells (the immune cells that kill sick cells) by abusing an enzyme called ERAP1; GRWD5769 blocks that enzyme, so the cancer lights up on the immune system’s radar again. In a trial of 83 people with six different cancer types (all of whom had already run out of other options), tumours shrank in 26 patients.

For a proper roundup of the conference, check out this post from Saloni Dattani, and for the cancer nerds, Eric Topol’s latest survey is worth a look: more than 2,500 immunotherapy drugs and programmes are now in development, evidence that progress in cancer is coming as a flood of new tools rather than as a single silver bullet.

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This week’s top stories

More people in the world feel free to choose what to do with their own lives
A record 82% of adults across 138 countries say they are satisfied with their freedom to choose what they do with their lives, up from 71% two decades ago, according to Gallup. The biggest gains have come across the Balkans, Caucasus, Eastern and Central Europe, where the median has risen from a 2009 low of 49% to 82%. Note: the measure reflects personal, day-to-day freedom, not necessarily political rights.

Laos closes in on eliminating schistosomiasis. Schistosomiasis is a parasitic disease spread by freshwater snails, and once infected more than 40% of people in parts of Lao PDR. Decades of treatment and surveillance have pushed infection rates below 1% in high-risk areas, leaving transmission concentrated to southern Champasack Province, where less than 120,000 people now remain at risk. WHO

EU releases billions for Hungary and Budapest Pride gets go-ahead. The EU is set to release more than €16 billion in frozen funds to Hungary after democratic reforms prompted the EU Commission to hail “the winds of change.” Days later, police approved the 31st Budapest Pride march for 27th June, a year after Viktor Orbán’s government created a legal basis to ban Pride events and fine attendees €500. The Guardian

About those green sea turtles (from Rolf Skeldon)…

For more than 40 years, the green sea turtle appeared on the IUCN Red List as Endangered. That classification, introduced in 1982, reflected a species that had been commercially hunted for generations: taken for its meat, its eggs, and its shell until populations had been pushed to a point where genuine extinction was a possibility.

In October 2025, the IUCN formally reclassified the green sea turtle as Least Concern.

It did not move one category. It did not inch forward gradually. It skipped two classifications entirely, jumping straight from Endangered to Least Concern without pausing at Vulnerable or Near Threatened.

It represents one of the most significant conservation recoveries ever recorded.

Rice has a water problem (two, actually) but Indian scientists have bred a way around each. Over the last 12 or so years, India has released nearly 3,000 climate-resilient crop varieties. Two of the most striking are engineered rice lines, solving equal and opposite water problems.

Sometimes a paddy floods for too long. Ordinary rice drowns if it’s submerged for more than a week. So scientists bred a line of rice that carries a gene called SUB1. When a flood hits, instead of frantically trying to grow taller than the water, the plant holds still. It powers down, saves its energy, and waits. When the water drains away, it picks up where it left off, even after two weeks underwater. In a flooding year, SUB1 rice outperforms normal rice by almost 50%. In a normal year, there’s no yield penalty at all. A farmer loses nothing by switching.

And sometimes there’s the opposite problem: not enough water where you want to plant. The DRR Dhan line helps with that. Drought is trickier than flood — drought tolerance is spread across dozens of genes. There’s no single switch to flip, like in SUB1. So DRR Dhan doesn’t out-clever the dry season. Instead it outruns it. It grows fast and finishes before the water’s gone, a shorter, tighter season. And it can be grown dry, like wheat, in plain soil, no need for flooded paddies.

A massive new Indigenous protected area across Australia’s sea country
The Karajarri people have formalised Australia’s first Sea Country Indigenous Protected Area, covering 2,375 km² of marine and coastal ecosystems in Western Australia’s Kimberley region. The new reserve protects part of Eighty Mile Beach, nesting habitat for flatback turtles and waters used by rare sawfish, and extends decades of Karajarri-led stewardship from land into sea. Indigenous Protected Areas now account for 54% of Australia’s progress toward protecting 30% of its territory by 2030. Mongabay

Batteries are transforming Australia’s power grid (see what we did there?) Australia has become a global battery outlier, adding more grid-scale storage per person over the past two years than any other country. In the first quarter of 2026, battery output on the east coast grid more than tripled year-on-year, wholesale prices fell 12%, and batteries set power prices almost one-third of the time. Australia’s benchmark power prices will start falling from July 2026, with households saving up to 10.7% and small businesses up to 20.9%. AFR

“Even for the true believers, the rush on batteries in Australia in the past two years has drastically exceeded expectations. At the grid level, more new battery capacity came online in 2025 than in the previous eight years combined. Between January 2025 and January 2026, their share of the grid increased from around 3 per cent to nearly 10 per cent. According to the market operator, the amount of power discharged by batteries in the first quarter of 2026 was more than three times greater than the same period in 2025.”

In 2017 an estimated 20% of Benin’s population was unrecorded — no birth certificate, no National ID, no anything. This was bad because, in Benin as elsewhere, legal identity is necessary to open a bank account, register a business, take school exams, apply for jobs, or use mobile money. Cue a push by the government to register its citizenry, and less than a decade later, nearly 99% of Benin’s population is in the system, with the government in some cases creating on-the-spot identity documents (two witnesses and a municipal officer!). World Bank

Mexico wipes out farm debts for tens of thousands of small producers. Claudia Sheinbaum’s government will forgive or restructure debts owed by small farmers, fishers and rural producers to Mexico’s former agricultural finance agency, clearing liabilities for 99.5% of debtors. Peoples Dispatch

How Argentina is getting its jaguars back. We covered this story a few editions ago - now the excellent journalists at bioGraphic have a feature on how Argentina’s Gran Chaco recently recorded its first wild-born jaguar cubs. Cute!

…and in more wildlife news from the same country, Rewilding Argentina and the National Parks Administration just released five guanacos (llama ancestors) into El Impenetrable National Park, where the species disappeared 110 years ago. Two mums, two dads, and a juvenile are currently enjoying El Impenetrable, with 20 more guanacos waiting in pre-release pens to join them. The camelids (yes, they look like little camels) were herded and trucked 3,200 km from Patagonia in what is almost certainly the world’s longest overland wildlife translocation for conservation. Mongabay

Britain’s River Wye granted legal rights in landmark move. Councils and protected-area bodies across England and Wales have endorsed a charter recognising the River Wye’s entire 209-kilometre catchment as a living ecosystem with rights to flow, regenerate, support biodiversity and be represented in decision-making. The polluted river is in poor condition, but the charter gives campaigners a new governance tool after years of pressure. Oceanographic

Health officials in Guyana report no postpartum haemorrhage deaths for the last three years. Increased training saves the day! Guyana Chronicle

Also, Guyana’s ‘waiting homes’ now allow rural women to stay near delivery wards before labour. Six of these hospital-based homes have been built so far. They’re popular. More are in the works. Newsroom.gy

US clean energy goes on a blitz to beat policy deadline. US clean energy developers announced 54 utility-scale solar, wind and battery projects in the first quarter of 2026, representing more than $18 billion in planned investment and over 12 GW of new capacity. That is nearly double the number announced in all of 2025, as companies rush to qualify before federal tax rules tighten. The flipside: 38 projects were also cancelled, wiping out nearly $13 billion in investment. Electrek

Ok ok, that’s actually a bit of a mixed bag. So let’s end with a lightning round of undiluted good news from the United States:

• Florida is closing Alligator Alcatraz.

• New York has put a one-year moratorium on data centres.

• Minnesota just became the first state to ban prediction markets.

• Massachusetts school lunch participation has risen by 22% and breakfast by 27% since the state made school meals free for all students in 2023.

• Vermont is the first state to ban paraquat, a pesticide linked to Alzheimer’s.

• Texas is directing US$1.4 billion in federal funding toward rural healthcare.

• Also in Texas (by far the country’s largest energy market), clean energy has overtaken fossil fuels.

• Virginia becomes the first southern state to pass paid family and medical leave.

• Virginia has also banned the sale and manufacture of certain semi-automatic firearms, joining 11 other states.

• Oklahoma becomes the 17th state to ban child marriage. There has been a sea change regarding the issue in the US over the past decade.

• Since 2019, 26 states have enacted menopause laws, which run the gamut from mandating insurance coverage for treatments to workplace accommodations.

• National suicide rates decrease across most racial groups and youth.

• Why overdose deaths in the US are falling (it’s not because of the war on drugs).

Read more

The restoration of the Klamath is one of our favourite conservation stories of the decade - both for its scale, and its symbolism. We first heard about it in 2020 and have shared many, many updates on its progress in this newsletter. In 2024, after a generational campaign, the largest dam removal project in U.S. history was completed. Three days later, the salmon returned.

This week on the podcast we got a chance to sit down with someone who was right at the centre: Amy Bowers Cordalis, attorney, activist and member of the Yurok Tribe, who helped lead the fight (and got to blow up one of the dams on her birthday). From why she can’t sleep when the salmon run, to how joy helps in her advocacy, this is a conversation about what repair truly means for nature, communities and our collective future - and about what comes after the victory.

You can listen here, wherever you get your podcasts.

Or check out the full conversation on Youtube.

This week’s top stories

Hungary proposes an eight year limit for prime ministers. A week after coming in to office, Péter Magyar’s administration submitted a constitutional amendment that would cap prime ministers at eight years in office, barring ex-PM Viktor Orbán from returning after 20 years in power. The package also opens the door to dissolving the controversial sovereignty protection office, widely accused of silencing opposition voices, and reclaiming public assets moved into Orbán-linked foundations. The Guardian

The past year has brought us three Alzheimer’s breakthroughs. For 30 years, Alzheimer’s research has had one song, “Amyloid plaques are bad.” Billions of dollars, two FDA-approved drugs (lecanemab and donanemab), and yet Alzheimer’s patients have only gotten slightly less worse, a little bit slower. But within the last 12 months, three separate teams have said: what if we tried literally anything else.

Indiana University went for an enzyme called IDOL. Everyone assumed it mattered in the brain’s immune cells because that’s where most of it gets made. Wrong floor. Knock out IDOL in neurons and plaques drop, APOE (the gene variant that’s basically a lit fuse for late-onset Alzheimer’s) drops, and the receptors that keep neurons talking to each other go up.

Barcelona, Sichuan and London ignored the neuron, and went for the plumbing instead. The blood-brain barrier has a protein called LRP1 whose job is grabbing amyloid and shoving it into the bloodstream — except in Alzheimer’s, LRP1 jams. They built nanoparticles that act like a reset button. Three injections, and an elderly mouse came out behaviourally indistinguishable from a healthy one.

Bordeaux, Moncton and Inserm went one floor deeper. Forget the neurons, forget the plumbing, look at the power supply. Mitochondria — the engines inside every neuron — start failing before cells die. So the team built an artificial receptor that revs them back up, and memory came back.

Caveat: Mice. It’s always mice. But it looks like the amyloid plaque monopoly might finally be over.

Wind and solar just generated more electricity on Earth than fossil gas. In April 2026, wind and sunshine supplied 22% of the world’s electricity compared with fossil gas at 20%. Reuters

Gus here: I got dragged into the muck with the usual suspects when I posted this graph on Substack notes, but managed to get my shots in. I should know better than to argue with strangers on the internet, but sometimes you just can’t help it?

India is industrialising with wind and sun, not coal. India’s solar capacity is growing by 40% a year and is expected to double again by 2030. Coal still supplies around 70% of power, and weak grids mean a lot of solar is now wasted, but the direction is historic: the world’s most populous country is trying to industrialise with wind and solar at a scale no major economy has ever attempted. Yale Environment 360

“But what about all the coal plants India and China are building?” Global coal capacity rose 3.5% in 2025, yet coal-fired generation fell 0.6%, according to Global Energy Monitor’s latest report. In China and India, especially, new coal plants are being built, but wind, solar and batteries are more than meeting new demand, cutting actual coal use. Why build new coal plants then? Inertia, mostly. Most of the new coal capacity in India and China was commissioned years ago, before the market dynamics around renewables changed. So new coal plants are coming online, but they’re running as backup, not baseload, idle most of the time but fired up on demand to maintain grid stability.

Namibia gets funding to conserve 24% of its country. Namibia has a long conservation history; at independence it wrote environmental protection into its constitution. It passed a law establishing the right of local people to organise themselves into conservancies in 1996. What it hasn’t had is money: there’s a difference between a conservancy run by locals on a shoestring and the same thing but with a nice endowment to preserve it through instability. Now the international community and the government are finally stepping up, with the “Namibia For Life” initiative securing $63 million to permanently conserve more than 24% of the country. WWF / Bloomberg

“As Namibians, we have done things that no one in this world has done before. We have secured wildlife species that went extinct in other countries. They live outside protected areas and can roam freely in their natural habitats. It’s a victory for us to see conservancies putting more land aside for conservation. These are all ordinary people, cattle herders who have walked the talk of community-based natural resource management and want to take the next step.”

New medical treatments are reaching more people, across more diseases. No mice. Check out this list of medical news from just the last few weeks.

• In San Francisco, researchers are preparing the first human trial of in utero gene therapy, starting with a rare lysosomal storage disorder.

• In colon cancer, adding immunotherapy to standard treatments halved the risk of recurrence or death for patients with a specific early-stage form of the disease.

• For skin cancer, a new vaccine trained patients’ immune systems to recognise their own tumours, cutting the risk of spreading or death by 59% after five years.

• For heart disease, a trial of a gene-editing treatment dramatically lowered cholesterol levels, perhaps permanently, after just one infusion.

• For age-related diseases a team from Texas developed a nasal spray that dramatically reduced brain inflammation, restored the brain’s cellular power plants and significantly improved memory.

• For type 2 diabetes, the US FDA recently approved the first long-acting insulin, turning a daily burden into a weekly one.

• WHO and Gilead will donate almost 403,000 vials of AmBisome for visceral leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease that is usually fatal without treatment.

• Moxidectin, a better treatment for river blindness, has been rescued by non-profit funders after the pharmaceutical industry walked away.

• A $140 million fund has been launched to make a vaccine for Strep A, which kills an estimated 639,000 people a year, a toll comparable to HIV/AIDS and malaria.

The largest ever private sector school meals commitment will feed 366,000 children across East Africa. The World Food Programme and two Danish foundations just launched an $80.85 million programme across Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia. Over five years, the partnership aims to feed 366,000 children and create stable markets for 57,500 smallholder farmers.

British beavers stop underground station flooding. Love this story. Until two years ago, West London’s Greenford Tube station used to flood whenever it rained heavily. Then the Ealing Beaver Project got a licence to resettle a family of five beavers in Paradise Fields, a former golf course turned urban-forested park near the Greenford Tube station. After the beavers felled a few trees and built a dam to make a pond from the golf course creek, flooding stopped at the tube station, and new species started moving in. The council has now scrapped its expensive plans for a reservoir and levee. NPR

To block illegal bottom trawlers, Cambodia is building concrete towers. It’s very clever: three-tonne underwater concrete towers disable trawl nets while creating shelter and nursery space for fish. An NGO has now deployed 1,250 of these ‘Fishery Productivity Structures’ across its southern coast, protecting more than 200 km² of habitat. Early monitoring found fish abundance six times higher at protected sites than control areas. Oceanographic

2026 will probably see the lowest US murder rate ever recorded.

”Yes, it’s late May and there are still more than seven full months remaining in 2026, but there has been enough data collected on this year to say that this year will likely set a new record for lowest murder rate ever recorded by the FBI when their Crime in the Nation report comes out sometime next summer or fall.”
Jeff Asher

Read more

Meet Amy Bowers Cordalis - attorney, activist and member of the Yurok Tribe - who helped lead one of the most significant river restoration efforts in modern history. Amy shares the story behind America’s largest dam removal project: from growing up alongside the Klamath River and witnessing the devastating 2002 salmon die-off, to becoming the first General Counsel for the Yurok Tribe and helping navigate a long fight against political, legal and corporate interests that many believed was impossible to win.

This isn’t just a conversation about dams or conservation. It’s about what comes after victory - and what repair truly means for ecosystems, communities, culture and our collective future.

In this episode:

• How Amy blew up a dam on her birthday

• Why salmon returned to the Klamath River in just three days

• The cultural and spiritual connection between the Yurok people, the river and salmon

• What the 2002 mass death of 70,000 salmon meant for Indigenous communities

• How grief and anger led Amy to law school and environmental advocacy

• Warren Buffett - and why his team ended up on the banks of the Klamath River

• The surprising economics of dam removal and river restoration

• Finding the joy in advocacy

• What the Klamath story teaches us about hope, persistence and ability of nature and communities to heal

Timestamps:

00:54 - Introduction to the Klamath River story

02:26 - Meet Amy Bowers Cordalis

03:59 - The Yurok's relationship with the Klamath and the salmon

07:05 - The turning point in 2002 

10:59 - How Amy's great-grandmother told her to take action

12:53 -  80,000 salmon died, no media showed up 

13:38 - What a decades-long battle felt like on the inside?

15:13 -  When Warren Buffet's team came out to the Klamath

19:02 -  Midpoint reflections

20:43 - How the Klamath restoration changes the story of environmental activism

22:55 - Why restoration and economics can go hand in hand

23:49 - What it's like to blow up a dam, on your birthday

25:04 - How the elders have responded to the Klamath flowing again

27:32 - How salon beat scientific predication and returned after three days

29:23 - The myth of the lone hero

32:11 - Other river restoration projects happening in America

34:26 - What comes after victory? Healing.

38:21 - What the Klamath story tells us about what's possible

40:22 - Final reflections

Want to dive deeper?

👉 Find out more about Amy and her book 'The Water Remembers'
👉 Amy's non-profit Ridges to Riffles

About Fix The News:
Fix The News is a solutions-focused media platform sharing stories from the frontlines of progress - exploring what’s working in the world and the people making it happen.

Subscribe & follow:
If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast and leave a review - it helps more people find these stories.

Production credits:
Hosted by Angus Hervey and Amy Davoren-Rose
Produced by Fix The News
Audio production: Anthony Badolato, Hear That!

 This episode was produced in Australia on the lands of the Gadigal, Wurundjeri and Woi Wurrung peoples.

This week’s top stories

Energy forecasts from 12 months ago are being shredded by the growth of solar and the Iran war. BloombergNEF says solar is now on track to become the world’s largest source of electricity by 2032, several years earlier than it predicted just 12 months ago. These forecasts are always a bit of a thumbsuck — the error is what matters here: once again, solar and batteries are outrunning even the most optimistic assumptions from forecasters. Bloomberg / Renew Economy

Africa moves closer to making its own vaccines. Africa CDC and Aspen Pharma are discussing a long-term supply framework for African-made vaccines, while Gavi is proposing $189M in new incentives to tackle market bottlenecks and buy up to 70 million doses from startup manufacturers on the continent. During COVID-19, Africa produced just 0.1% of global vaccines despite having 20% of the world’s population. Reuters / Gavi

Tunisia has eliminated trachoma as a public health problem. It becomes the 31st country globally, and the 14th in the Eastern Mediterranean region, to achieve this goal. Trachoma affected at least 50% of Tunisia’s population in the early to mid-20th century, but the government has spent decades prioritising eye-health and implementing the WHO-recommended SAFE strategy. WHO

White-tailed eagles are returning to southern England after 240 years. Britain’s largest bird of prey is continuing its comeback in England, with conservationists approved to release up to 20 more white-tailed eagles in Exmoor over the next three years. Since the reintroduction began on the Isle of Wight in 2019, 45 young birds have been released, four breeding pairs have established territories, and six chicks have now been born in the wild for the first time since the 18th century. Forestry England

The Gambia has cut malaria cases by 46% in a single year. Cases fell from 108,090 in 2024 to 58,283 in 2025, thanks to a package of interventions that included the distribution of 1.2 million next-generation insecticide-treated nets and malaria chemoprevention for 127,578 children during the rainy season. Expanded rapid testing, community access to antimalarials and the imminent arrival of vaccines have put a 2030 elimination target into play. The Voice

As China’s car market races away from oil (internal-combustion vehicle sales fell by 37% year-on-year in April 2026), it’s worth noting the country’s electrification push has already made the air much cleaner. A new study in Nature shows the transition has cut PM2.5 concentrations by 23.8% and carbon monoxide by 30.7% across 150 cities, preventing an estimated 262,000 deaths. The air is only going to get cleaner: new energy vehicles now have a 61.4% market share, and nine of the ten top-selling models last month were plug-ins.

Papua New Guinea will protect 200,000 km² of its waters, an area roughly the size of the United Kingdom. The proposed Western Manus Marine Protected Area will become the largest no-take reserve in this part of the Pacific Ocean, safeguarding coral reefs, grey reef sharks, dolphins and seabirds. National Geographic Society

☝️ The best part of this is that the MPA boundary was drawn by the animals themselves. Scientists tracked grey reef sharks moving between shallow and deep habitats to define where protection was needed most. Conservation shaped by biology, not by bureaucracy. ‌‍​‍​‍‌‍‌​‍‌‍‍‌‌‍‌‌‍‍‌‌‍‍​‍​‍​‍‍​‍​‍‌​‌‍​‌‌‍‍‌‍‍‌‌‌​‌‍‌​‍‍‌‍‍‌‌‍​‍​‍​‍​​‍​‍‌‍‍​‌​‍‌‍‌‌‌‍‌‍​‍​‍​‍‍​‍​‍‌‍‍​‌‌​‌‌​‌​​‌​​‍‍​‍​‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‌‌‌‌​​‍‌‌‍​‌‍‌‌​​‍‍‌‍‍‌‍​‌‌‌​‌‍‍‌‌‍‌‍‍‌‍​‌‌‍​‌‍‌‌‍‌‌‌‍‌‍‌‌​‍‌‍​‌‌​​‌‍‍​‌‍‍‌‌‍​​‍‍‌‍‌​‍‌‍‌​‍‌‍‍‌‌‍‍‌‌​‌‍‌‌‌‍‍‌‌​​‍‌‍‌‌‌‍‌​‌‍‍‌‌‌​​‍‌‍‌‌‍‌‍‌​‌‍‌‌​‌‌​​‌​‍‌‍‌‌‌​‌‍‌‌‌‍‍‌‌​‌‍​‌‌‌​‌‍‍‌‌‍‌‍‍​‍‌‍‍‌‌‍‌​​‌‌‍​​‌​​​‌‍​​‌​​​​​​‍​​‍‌​‍‌​​‌‍​​​‍​‍‌​‌​​​​‌‍‌​‌‍‌‍​‍‌​‍‌‌‍‌​​‍‌​​​​‍‌​‌‌​‌​​‍‌​‌​​​‌‍‌‌​‌‌​‌‌​​​​‍​‌‍‌​​​‌​‍‌‌​‌‍‌‌​​‌‍‌‌​‌‌‍‍‌‍‌‌‌‌‌​‌‌‌‍​‌‌​‍‌‌​‌‍‍‌‌‍​‌‍​‌‍‌‌​‍‌​​‌‍​‌‌‌​‌‍‍​​‌‌‍‌‌‍‌‌‌​‌​‌‍​‌‌‍‌‌‍‌‌‌​​‍‌‍‌‍‌​‌‍‌​‍‌‌​‌‌‌​​‍‌‌‌‍‍‌‍‌‌‌‍‌​‍‌‌​​‌​‌​​‍‌‌​​‌​‌​​‍‌‌​​‍​​‍​‌​‌​‌‍‌‍​​‌‌‍‌​​​‍​‌​​‍​‌‍‌‍​‌​‌​‌‍‌​​‍‌‌​​‍​​‍​‍‌‌​‌‌‌​‌​​‍‍‌‍​‌‍‍​‌‍‍‌‌‍​‌‍‌​‌​‍‌‍‌‌‌‍‍​‍‌‌​‌‌‌​​‍‌‌‌‍‍‌‍‌‌‌‍‌​‍‌‌​​‌​‌​​‍‌‌​​‌​‌​​‍‌‌​​‍​​‍​​​‍‌‌‍​‌‍‌‍‌‍‌‌​‌‍​‌​​‌​‌​​​​​​​‍‌​‍‌‌​​‍​​‍​‍‌‌​‌‌‌​‌​​‍‍‌‌​‌‍‌‌‌‍​‌‌​​‌‍​‍‌‍​‌‌​‌‍‌‌‌‌‌‌‌​‍‌‍​​‌‌‍‍​‌‌​‌‌​‌​​‌​​‍‌‌​​‌​​‌​‍‌‌​​‍‌​‌‍​‍‌‌​​‍‌​‌‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‌‌‌‌​​‍‌‌‍​‌‍‌‌​​‍‍‌‍‍‌‍​‌‌‌​‌‍‍‌‌‍‌‍‍‌‍​‌‌‍​‌‍‌‌‍‌‌‌‍‌‍‌‌​‍‌‍​‌‌​​‌‍‍​‌‍‍‌‌‍​​‍‍‌‍‌​‍‌‍‌​‍‌‍‌‍‍‌‌‍‌​​‌‌‍​​‌​​​‌‍​​‌​​​​​​‍​​‍‌​‍‌​​‌‍​​​‍​‍‌​‌​​​​‌‍‌​‌‍‌‍​‍‌​‍‌‌‍‌​​‍‌​​​​‍‌​‌‌​‌​​‍‌​‌​​​‌‍‌‌​‌‌​‌‌​​​​‍​‌‍‌​​​‌​‍‌‍‌‌​‌‍‌‌​​‌‍‌‌​‌‌‍‍‌‍‌‌‌‌‌​‌‌‌‍​‌‌​‍‌‌​‌‍‍‌‌‍​‌‍​‌‍‌‌​‍‌‍‌​​‌‍​‌‌‌​‌‍‍​​‌‌‍‌‌‍‌‌‌​‌​‌‍​‌‌‍‌‌‍‌‌‌​​‍‌‍‌‍‌​‌‍‌​‍‌‌​‌‌‌​​‍‌‌‌‍‍‌‍‌‌‌‍‌​‍‌‌​​‌​‌​​‍‌‌​​‌​‌​​‍‌‌​​‍​​‍​‌​‌​‌‍‌‍​​‌‌‍‌​​​‍​‌​​‍​‌‍‌‍​‌​‌​‌‍‌​​‍‌‌​​‍​​‍​‍‌‌​‌‌‌​‌​​‍‍‌‍​‌‍‍​‌‍‍‌‌‍​‌‍‌​‌​‍‌‍‌‌‌‍‍​‍‌‌​‌‌‌​​‍‌‌‌‍‍‌‍‌‌‌‍‌​‍‌‌​​‌​‌​​‍‌‌​​‌​‌​​‍‌‌​​‍​​‍​​​‍‌‌‍​‌‍‌‍‌‍‌‌​‌‍​‌​​‌​‌​​​​​​​‍‌​‍‌‌​​‍​​‍​‍‌‌​‌‌‌​‌​​‍‍‌‌​‌‍‌‌‌‍​‌‌​​‍‌‍‌​​‌‍‌‌‌​‍‌​‌​​‌‍‌‌‌‍​‌‌​‌‍‍‌‌‌‍‌‍‌‌​‌‌​​‌‌‌‌‍​‍‌‍​‌‍‍‌‌​‌‍‍​‌‍‌‌‌‍‌​​‍​‍‌‌

We’ll share the map as soon as it becomes available. When Gus posted this on Linkedin he got this reply from Dr Frank Giffin from the CTI‑CFF, a six‑country partnership (including Papua New Guinea) focused on marine conservation, sustainable fisheries and food security in the Coral Triangle. They’re the folks responsible for maintaining regional records on MPAs.

A cheap eye scanner invented in India may help protect unborn babies. Remidio’s handheld camera, built in India and cleared by the FDA in December 2025, can capture retinal images in under a minute and is already used for diabetic-retinopathy screening in 40 countries. The Gates Foundation recently spotlighted its potential to flag gestational diabetes, hypertension and anaemia, all conditions linked to stillbirth. Around two million babies are stillborn every year (funny how the pro-life folks never seem to mention this as a problem worth solving?).

AI mapping tools are transforming rainforest investigations. Environmental journalists are using satellite imagery and machine-learning to expose illegal activities across the Amazon. One investigation mapped 3,718 illegal gold-mining sites in Venezuela, including inside protected Indigenous territories. The technology now allows continent-wide monitoring for the Amazon and Congo basins, allowing reporters to track environmental destruction remotely in regions too dangerous or inaccessible for field reporting. Nieman Lab

27 years after their existence was confirmed, Brazil has begun demarcating land for one of the Amazon’s most vulnerable uncontacted peoples. The Pardo River Kawahiva Indigenous territory covers 4,100 km². This demarcation will give the nomadic hunter-gatherer community better protection against farming expansion, land grabs and illegal logging and mining. Full recognition still requires a presidential signature and stronger enforcement from Brazil’s Indigenous affairs agency, but encouragingly, the territory has already recorded two years without deforestation. The Guardian

Electric trucking is moving faster than almost anyone realises. Battery-only models now account for roughly 11% of heavy long-distance truck sales and 20% of smaller truck sales in China. The economics are everything here: Bloomberg says electric trucks beat diesel wherever fuel costs more than four times electricity. Since diesel trucks and buses burn about as much fuel as all cars and motorcycles combined, the impact on oil demand is going to start getting really interesting.

10 million of the 60 million people in the world who live with hepatitis C are in Pakistan (thank unsafe blood transfusions and injections). Now Pakistan has launched a national hepatitis C elimination programme with free screening and treatment. Read that again — elimination —not prevention — this is ambitious. The programme aims to test 50% of the eligible population and treat five million people by 2027, all entirely free of charge. Pakistan Today

After two decades, Florida has completed a major Everglades restoration project that re-establishes natural water flow across 222.6 km² of drained wetlands in Picayune Strand. Crews plugged canals, removed elevated roads, and restored the slow “sheet flow” that once defined the River of Grass. Scientists are already documenting returning wetland plants, marsh mammals and endangered bats. Yale 360

More of the United States’ rivers were reconnected last year than at any other time in history. Over 100 dams came down across 30 states in 2025, reconnecting nearly 7,900 km of waterways for fish, flood safety and cleaner rivers. NYT

West Africa is turning 15 national grids into a regional power system, making electricity cheaper, cleaner and more reliable across borders. More than 4,000 km of high-voltage lines now connect the West African Power Pool, enabling utilities to trade electricity across borders, while upgrades have brought service to over three million people in Burkina Faso, Guinea, Liberia, Senegal, Sierra Leone and The Gambia. World Bank

Scientists found a giant squid without ever seeing one — and they did it by reading DNA floating in seawater. Off the coast of Western Australia, a team scooped up over 1,000 water samples from depths as deep as 4.5 km and analysed the tiny bits of genetic material that sea creatures shed as they swim. The result: 226 species, including the legendary Architeuthis dux (eyes the size of a large pizza, body longer than a school bus), Cuvier’s beaked whale, and a faceless cusk eel. Some of the species don’t match anything in the books yet. Curtin University

The United States’ biggest renewable project is already decarbonising the grid. SunZia, the largest renewable energy project ever built in the US, has begun sending wind power from New Mexico to California via an 885 km transmission line. The impact is already visible: in the month after SunZia came online, California wind generation rose 37% and gas generation fell 35%. That is what new transmission is supposed to do: move cheap clean power from where it is abundant to where it can displace fossil fuels.

A Short History of Saving the World

We’re equal parts nervous and excited to introduce you to our new history podcast, with rogue historian and one of our favourite science fiction writers, Ada Palmer.

Every generation thinks it’s living through the end of the world. Truth is, we’ve been here before. Part conversation, part historical detective work, this series revisits the moments where everything was supposed to collapse, but didn’t.

Join Ada and a slightly overwhelmed Gus as they embark on a whistle stop tour through information revolutions, pandemics, battles for freedom, censorship — and discover the surprising ways societies continue to adapt and endure through the ages.

You can subscribe here, wherever you listen to your podcasts.

A Short History of Saving the World

Read more

Three years ago we launched our podcast with a simple question and some dodgy microphones. These days the microphones are much better, we have a lot more questions, and a problem we never anticipated.

In May 2023, we had just finished our Humankind project, a series profiling 100 people quietly doing extraordinary things in the world. When it ended, we were left with a question we couldn’t shake:

What drives a person to devote their life to cleaning up the ocean, fixing global hunger, protecting chimpanzees, or unlocking a cure for a rare disease? How do ordinary people end up doing extraordinary things?

Starting a podcast gave us an excuse to speak to those people in person. Our first season was an enthusiastic mess, figuring things out as we went. We knew in our heads what we wanted, but had absolutely no idea how to make it.

We learned though. Four seasons later we’ve had more than 70 conversations with extraordinary guests like Boyan Slat, Shabana Basij-Rasikh, Steven Pinker, and Kris Tompkins. Experimented. Failed spectacularly (and landed up making our own original audio documentary series). Kept going.

And somehow along the way, one podcast has become four.

Announcing the Fix The News Network

A collection of podcasts exploring progress, possibility and the forces shaping our future. Alongside our newsletter, you’ll now be able to find all our audio content in one place, and on YouTube, with long-form interviews, weekly news roundups, history series and video episodes.

Check it out at podcast.fixthenews.com or by simply clicking on the podcast tab on our website ☝️. You can also search for and subscribe to any of these wherever you normally listen to your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, Amazon etc).

Here they are.

Not sure where to begin?

• Want a seven minute antidote to doomscrolling? Start with NewsFix.

• Love deep-dive conversations with amazing people? Try the Fix The News Podcast.

• History nerd? A Short History of Saving the World.

• Looking for an audio documentary with world-changing stakes? A Shot at History.

Why now?

We’re launching this network at a moment when the media landscape is changing - fast. Attention is fragmented. Trust is harder to win. Many people are quietly stepping back from the news altogether; not because they don’t care, but because staying informed feels exhausting.

At the same time, the ways we consume information are shifting. More people are listening while they walk, watching while they cook, and turning to podcasts and longer conversations to make sense of a complicated world.

We’re excited to join the experiment. To meet people in different places and formats, while staying anchored to the same questions that have shaped Fix The News from the beginning:

What’s going right in the world? And… how does progress actually happen?

We’re slowly creating more video too, in an effort to find new ways of telling stories beyond the newsletter. Here are our first two episodes from this season of Fix The News.

We didn’t do this alone

A huge thank you to Anthony Badolato from HearThat! - our audio engineer, the voice behind NewsFix and the person responsible for the sonic identity across the network. Anthony has spent months helping shape not only how these shows sound, but how they feel. We couldn’t have done any of this without him.

And to Sasha Simon, who created our new visual identity for the podcast network and our Youtube channel. Her work genuinely blew us away. Sasha somehow solved the impossible challenge of giving each show its own personality - while keeping them connected to a shared editorial vision. The result feels thoughtful, distinctive and unmistakably ours.

Independent media is rarely glamorous. It’s late night edits, frantic WhatsApp chats, audio tweaks, too much coffee and a lot of conversations that begin with: “What if we…”

We’re so grateful to everyone who helped bring this next chapter to life.

Let us know what you think!

This week’s top stories

The news media was all over US vaccinations declining. Why so quiet now that vaccinations are rising? Preliminary CDC data suggests MMR coverage among three-year-olds rose from 93% to 97% between 2024 and 2025 — higher than pre-COVID levels and the 95% threshold needed to prevent outbreaks. It looks like the South Carolina outbreak scared people straight. That outbreak is now over; no new linked infections have been recorded for two incubation periods. Health officials credit the uh, surge in vaccinations, as well as very aggressive contact tracing. CNN

The European Parliament has backed an EU-wide conversion therapy ban after a 1.2 million-signature citizens’ campaign. The proposal won support from 405 MEPs and now awaits a formal European Commission response by 18 May. Seven European countries already ban the practice outright; an EU-level rule would turn a patchwork of national laws into a continent-wide rights standard. Washington Blade

The EU is also moving closer to a consent-based rape standard. The European Parliament voted 447–197 to urge all EU states to adopt an only “yes means yes” legal standard for consent. The move seeks to replace the older “no means no” threshold, which activists say leaves victims unprotected; it is only the first step, and must still be proposed as legislation for member states to vote on. CNN

Colorado just legalised ‘balcony solar’ for apartments and renters
From 2027, utilities, landlords and homeowner associations will be restricted from blocking approved systems under 2 kilowatts. While small, these systems can be mounted on apartment balconies, patios and walls, opening rooftop-style solar access to millions of renters and multi-family households previously locked out of the energy transition. CleanTechnica

Elephants on farm raids might help us find new medicines. When elephants raid banana and papaya farms, they occasionally skip the fruit and eat only the stems and leaves. Why? Gabonese scientist Steeve Ngama suspected the answer was at least partially pharmaceutical. He and his team collected dung samples from farm-raiding elephants and found that those with parasitic infections were much more likely to eat plant parts with anti-parasitic properties — including banana stems and papaya trees. The implications cut two ways: if elephants are self-medicating, their foraging might help us identify new human treatments, and if stem-raiding elephants can be given medications they might leave fruit farms alone more often. British Ecological Society

Queensland restores tidal wetlands by letting the sea back in
Conservation groups, graziers and Yuwi traditional owners are removing decades-old tidal barriers across coastal Queensland, reconnecting wetlands to the ocean and rapidly reviving native ecosystems. On one Mackay cattle property, juvenile barramundi returned within months; at Cape Palmerston, restored saltwater flows killed off 80% of invasive grasses. ABC News

New South Wales creates vast koala refuge after 13 years of campaigning. The Great Koala National Park will protect almost 5,000 km² along Australia’s east coast by linking existing reserves with state forests and creating corridors through a landscape fragmented by logging, roads and development. Conservationists say the park should safeguard around 20% of NSW’s wild koalas, plus 66 other threatened animals and 37 threatened plant species. Mongabay

Off-patent ‘abortion pill’ could treat common, deadly cancer. Glioblastoma, a deadly brain cancer, kills its median patient within 14 months. The standard regimen of surgery, radiation, and temozolomide has barely budged that number in 20 years. Since 2013, a research group at Mexico’s National Cancer Institute, led by pharmacologist Patricia García-López, has been building a case that mifepristone — the ‘abortion pill,’ — could chemo-sensitize glioblastoma by suppressing three of the tumour’s main resistance mechanisms.

This is because mifepristone is a progesterone receptor antagonist, and progesterone receptors are present on glioblastoma cells. The more aggressive the tumour, the more receptors it tends to have. A 2021 review by García-López’s team recommending human clinical trials was ignored, so García-López and her team scraped together eight patients and ran a pilot themselves.

Now the numbers are in: 588 vs 165 days average survival, 80% one-year survival. Two patients are still alive at 72 and 82 months, years past where most glioblastoma patients make it. The authors titled their conference abstract “A Fairytale Comes True?” and the question mark matters, because the trial is tiny: eight people is eight people. But the numbers are correct. Now for the conspiratorial part: this drug is off-patent and cheap, which may be why no major sponsor has run the proper Phase II this finding deserves? Cancer Biology & Therapy

Brazil’s forest losses fell by 42% in 2025, helping pull the global tropical deforestation curve back from a record high. The country lost 16,000 km² of tropical primary forest, far below the 28,000 km² recorded in 2024, while non-fire-related losses fell 41% to their lowest level since records began in 2001. Agência Brasil

Chinese meat importers pledge to buy deforestation-free Brazilian beef. Not a headline we expected to be writing. After visiting Brazil in April 2026, Xing Yanling — the head of the Tianjin Meat Industry Association, responsible for around 40% of China’s beef purchases from Brazil — described “the magic of being enveloped in tens of thousands of shades of green.” Under her leadership, the group has now committed to buying 50,000 tonnes of deforestation-free certified Brazilian beef by the end of 2026, about 4.5% of expected exports to China. Reuters

China has cut its oil imports by roughly 25% from pre-Iran war levels, which is pretty shocking - it means they’re no longer stockpiling. This has stabilised oil prices around the rest of the world, and is one of the main reasons the Iran-based energy crisis isn’t worse. Bloomberg

A California company is pulling clean drinking water straight from the air. California company Atoco has developed a shipping-container-sized machine that uses advanced nanomaterials called metallic organic frameworks to harvest water molecules directly from the atmosphere, even in arid regions. The first commercial units, due later this year, can produce up to 4,000 litres of drinking water per day for data centres, hospitals and remote communities. Bloomberg

Also: desalination startups are promising freshwater from saltwater with 40% less energy and portable desalination for ‘water autonomy.’ Heatmap

The United States now has rape-kit reform on the books in all 50 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. After 16 years of advocacy, Joyful Heart Foundation’s ‘End the Backlog’ campaign has reached its final state, after Maine passed legislation requiring a statewide inventory and tracking system. People

Today marks a watershed moment not only for the State of Maine, but for every survivor who has asked if their rape kit was forgotten, if their truth was abandoned on a shelf, if they have hope of finding justice.

Violent crime is plummeting in America’s biggest cities in 2026. Data from 67 major law enforcement agencies show first-quarter homicides down 17.7% so far this year, with robberies down 20.4%, rapes down 7.2% and aggravated assaults down 4.8%. The declines show up across every major region, and in some of the nation’s biggest cities. Axios

• New York City reported 76 murders through April 2026, down from 102 in the first four months of 2025 (there were an astounding 709 murders in the same period in 1990, meaning 2026 is down nearly 90% by comparison)! New York isn’t alone. Philadelphia, Detroit, New Orleans, Baltimore, Washington DC and Los Angeles have all seen drops to near historic levels.

• Baltimore saw only 4 homicides in April 2026, the lowest number since police began tracking crime in 1970. The milestone follows years of declining violence, with killings and nonfatal shootings down 10% compared to last year. WBA Baltimore

• And Aurora, Colorado (repeatedly singled out during the 2024 presidential election as overrun by Venezuelan immigrant gangs) has seen homicides fall by 66.7%, one of the sharpest reversals in the dataset.

Australia, the first ever country to roll out a national HPV vaccination programme, is now seeing zero cervical cancer in women under 25. Together, vaccination and screening in Australia have pushed incidence down to 6.3 cases per 100,000 women and increased five-year survival to 76.8%. BBC

It’s not just Australia: from Norway to Burundi to Indonesia, HPV vaccination is becoming routine. Iceland, Portugal and Norway have reached 90% HPV vaccine uptake among girls by age 15, while every EU country now recommends vaccination for both adolescent girls and boys. HPV programmes in Africa have expanded from 12 to 35 countries since 2019; Burundi is the latest to add routine HPV immunisation for girls aged 9–14. Indonesia, where cervical cancer kills more than 20,000 women a year, has rolled out free nationwide vaccination and screening, and is expanding access to surgical, chemotherapy, and palliative care across all 514 districts by 2030. As part of that plan, Indonesia has set 90‑75‑90 targets: fully vaccinate 90% of girls and boys by age 15; screen 75% of women ages 30 through 69; and ensure that 90% of women diagnosed receive treatment.

Chile’s maternity leave reform boosted women’s employment by 16%. Shocking! Doubling postnatal leave from 12 to 24 weeks let more women stay in the workforce after having children. VoxDev

It’s high time that the government cares for those of us who provide care.
Philippines’ 250,000 community health workers secure first union registration. Barangay Health Workers staff more than 26,000 local health centres, but most are still treated as ‘volunteers’ without regular wages, social security, hazard pay, benefits, or transport support. The new Maka-BHW Pilipinas union gives this largely informal workforce a national structure to bargain for protection, pay and better primary care. Public Services International

If it bleeds, it leads

The trap of climate catastrophism

In 2024, 257 behavioural scientists published findings from one of the largest ever experiments on climate messaging. Tested across 59,440 people in 63 countries, they found that doom and gloom was the single most effective strategy for driving social media shares. It was also the worst for motivating real-world action. People exposed to catastrophic framing were measurably less likely to change their behaviour than those who read nothing at all. The findings were widely circulated in climate circles, a lot of people said thoughtful things, then promptly returned to business as usual (AMOC anyone?).

Three things explain why the research hasn’t shifted practice. First, reach. Catastrophism performs online. Organisations and influencers measure success in impressions and shares, and doom delivers both. Second, identity. For a movement that has spent a decade warning of catastrophe, any retreat feels like concession. Third, inertia. Messaging infrastructure, fundraising copy, campaign strategy — the climate sector has spent years building muscle in these areas, and is understandably reluctant to give those skills up. To paraphrase Upton Sinclair, it’s hard to get someone to change their mind when their job depends on them not changing it.

Most climate messaging is still being aimed at people who already agree, delivered in a register that is driving the unconvinced further away. The audiences that are the most important for climate communicators to reach, regular voters, are checking out, and the cost is visible in the polling. Climate concern has softened across most of the world’s liberal democracies.

What the study found actually worked was moral framing and scientific consensus. Messages that leave people feeling like they’re part of something bigger, and capable rather than overwhelmed. But that stuff doesn’t travel well online, which is probably why it hasn’t been widely adopted. That's the problem: what works doesn't spread. What spreads doesn't work. It’s time for a change.

Read more

In this episode:

• The value of global conferences

• Why the current “crisis” feels like a reckoning

• How the frontlines of feminism are reshaping the Pacific

• Vanuatu and the landmark ICJ climate decision

• Why global organisations are focusing on adolescent girls

• The uncomfortable question around youth leadership

• Helen Clark on why the UN Charter needs to adapt to the 21st century

• Good news in global health and women’s health

• The Melbourne Declaration on gender equality

• The State of the World’s Fathers report

• A glimmer of hope from conflict zones

Timestamps:

00:58 Why do we cover these conferences?
03:01 Gus & Amy - same conference, different responses
06:19 The legacy of gender equality conferences
08:08 Oceanic feminist leadership
08:48 Virisila Buadromo - Urgent Action Fund
10:29 Climate is not a single-issue story
11:23 Virisila Buadromo on echo chambers and global solidarity
12:49 Flora Vano - ActionAid Vanuatu
14:08 Climate and maternal health intersect
15:16 The power of community-led solutions
16:47 Vanuatu and the landmark ICJ climate ruling
18:44 Renewed focus on adolescent girls
19:16 Julia Fan - Director for Collective Action, Women Deliver
21:06 Emily McChrystal - Restless Development
22:18 Youth-led digital solutions
23:38 Rethinking the UN Charter for the 21st century
24:02 Helen Clark - former Prime Minister of New Zealand
25:01 Good news in global health
26:35 The Melbourne Declaration for gender equality
28:33 Paola Salwan Daher - Women Deliver
29:36 Unexpected outcomes from the Melbourne Declaration
31:24 State of the World’s Fathers report
31:47 “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All”
33:08 Dr Taveeshi Gupta - Equimundo
34:56 What’s working with fathers globally?
36:38 Gary Barker - Equimundo
38:31 Bright sparks from Women Deliver
39:33 Anna Jarrett Rawlence - Women for Women International
40:47 Final reflections

Find Out More:

👉 Women Deliver
👉 Image credit: Joburg Ballet School/ Ihsaan Haffejee

About Fix The News:
Fix The News is a solutions-focused media platform sharing stories from the frontlines of progress - exploring what’s working in the world and the people making it happen.

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Production credits:
Hosted by Angus Hervey and Amy Davoren-Rose
Produced by Fix The News
Audio production: Anthony Badolato, Hear That!

 This episode was produced in Australia on the lands of the Gadigal, Wurundjeri and Woi Wurrung peoples.

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Our second major charity partner for 2026 is Women I TokTok Tugeta, a movement of over ten thousand women in Vanuatu who share disaster warnings, coordinate relief and help communities prepare for what comes next.

Last week we attended Women Deliver, the world’s largest gathering on gender equality, where we met Flora Vano. She was a guest on our podcast in 2023, a key witness in the landmark International Court of Justice climate case, and the person most responsible for building WITTT into what it is today.

Vanuatu has 80 islands. When cyclones, earthquakes or volcanic eruptions hit remote communities, government support can take weeks to arrive. WITTT has made women the first responders. In the process, it’s reshaping gender roles and leadership across the country.

We’re sending $20,000 AUD to support WITTT’s disaster preparedness and response across five islands. The funds will go into an emergency response fund to pre-position and distribute hundreds of Dignity Kits for women with disabilities and single mothers, support supplier training to reduce the risk of sexual exploitation during disasters, and fund recovery assistance for communities on Tanna Island affected by ongoing volcanic ash fall.

Thanks for making this possible, this work is so important, and this money will make a real difference. Here’s a video message from Flora to everyone who reads this newsletter, explaining what it means to them.

How you can help:

Donate a Dignity Kit: Every kit includes underwear, menstrual hygiene supplies, soap, toothbrush, towel, solar torch, flip-flops and an emergency protection card to connect women to the crisis centre.

Supplies: Flora and her team are sourcing towels, period underwear, bed sheets and kitchenware.

If you can help, hit reply, or send an email to amy@fixthenews.com

This week’s top stories

50 wild jaguars now roam Argentina’s Iberá wetlands - a species return once thought impossible. Jaguars disappeared from Corrientes province more than 70 years ago, but a reintroduction effort in 2012 by Tompkins Conservation has now resulted in the birth of the 50th wild cub in Iberá National Park. The milestone is helping drive a broader “Jaguar Corridor” aimed at reconnecting ecosystems and restoring top predators across South America’s river basins.

Jamaica’s murder rate dropped 40%, with tipsters as the key. Jamaica’s murder rate is plummeting, while at the same time, citizen tips to police have increased nearly tenfold over the past decade. Jamaica’s deputy Prime Minister Horace Chang says he hopes citizens enjoy what he calls a peace dividend: “tangible social, economic, and developmental benefits.” He also suspects most tips are products of ‘patriotism’ as 94% of tipsters have not come forward to collect rewards (though that may instead say some unflattering things about bureaucratic overhead). The Gleaner

Sudan and South Sudan have eliminated maternal and neonatal tetanus, a major milestone for maternal and child health in two countries mired in conflict. In Sudan, vaccination campaigns between 2016 and 2019 reached more than 3.5 million women in high-risk districts. Midwife training, prenatal care and community outreach did the rest of the work to get to elimination thresholds nationwide. UNICEF

Shanghai on the path to becoming a zero-waste city. Shanghai (home to 30 million people) is moving toward a citywide circular economy, with industrial recycling rates now approaching 98% and household recycling rising from 35% to 45.3% since mandatory sorting began in 2019. Kitchen waste is being converted into fertiliser and biodegradable plastics, while companies are recycling 130,000 tonnes of aluminium a year into new automotive materials and beverage cans. China Daily

Botswana has formally deleted colonial-era provisions criminalising same-sex intimacy from its Penal Code, aligning statute with court rulings in 2019 and 2021 that found them unconstitutional. The change removes penalties of up to seven years’ imprisonment and narrows the law to bestiality, reducing legal ambiguity that sustained stigma and barriers to healthcare, safety and employment. Reuters

Teenage pregnancy rates have fallen sharply across most of the world in the past three decades. Central and South Asia have seen the greatest progress: an astonishing 76% decline since 1990. Our World in Data

India is skipping China’s coal boom, and heading directly for green energy. India’s economy has reached roughly the same income level China occupied 15 years ago, but its energy trajectory looks very different. Solar and wind generation per person are already five times higher than China’s at a comparable stage, while India’s more service-driven economy requires less electricity per unit of GDP. Analysts now expect India’s future growth to be powered primarily by renewables and batteries, with coal expansion peaking far below China’s. Nicholas Fulghum

Carbon credits are helping restore a vast stretch of the Kalahari
South Africa’s Tswalu Kalahari Reserve has restored 1,180 km² of former grazing land by bringing back native wildlife and rebuilding damaged ecosystems. The project is now generating carbon credits linked to healthier soils, creating a new source of funding for conservation. Researchers say carefully managed wildlife grazing can turn carbon markets into a tool for large-scale recovery in dry landscapes. Mongabay

Writing has been independently invented maybe four times in human history. So when Europeans arrived at Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and found the islanders had a script, they assumed they had copied the idea. Located 4,000 km off the coast of Chile, Rapa Nui is one of the most isolated places on Earth. No other writing culture had ever reached them; the Europeans were the only plausible source. Except their script, Rongorongo, is a 3D glyph system with no obvious relationship to any European writing systems.

Now radiocarbon dating has found evidence that the original inhabitants of Rapa Nui invented writing independently. The evidence isn’t conclusive: the dating tells us is that Rongorongo was carved on a tablet made from wood from a tree that was definitely cut down pre-contact… but that doesn’t mean that was when the wood was actually inscribed. The search is now on for other tablets, scattered around the globe, to confirm the findings. Popular Mechanics

The global number of people without electricity has declined by more than half since the year 2000, even as the world’s population has increased by a third. Our World in Data

Sussex expands its trawling ban to shield rare chalk reef. A new bylaw will protect 164 km² of Sussex’s inshore waters from bottom trawling and scalloping, shielding rare chalk reef habitat and a cast of fantastical-sounding creatures: short-snouted seahorses, blue mussels, velvet swimming crabs and colourful wrasse. Almost 30% of Sussex’s inshore waters are now protected from trawling. Oceanographic

Scottish seabeds rebound after trawling bans. Scientists surveying South Arran Marine Protected Area have recorded the return of more than 1,500 seabed species nearly a decade after bans on bottom trawling and dredging were introduced. Protected areas supported roughly twice as many species and up to three times more marine life than nearby fished zones, with early signs that healthier sediments are also improving long-term carbon storage. Oceanographic

Two months in, the Iran war has changed the global energy system forever. With the Strait of Hormuz blocked and oil and gas supplies disrupted, countries across Europe and Asia are fast-tracking renewables, batteries, EVs and nuclear power to reduce exposure to imported fuels. The crisis is strengthening the long-term case for domestically generated clean energy, particularly as solar, storage and electrification technologies become cheaper, faster to deploy and more geopolitically resilient than fossil fuel infrastructure. Grist

Germany’s coal exit set to arrive early. Germany’s coal phase-out is likely to conclude by 2032, well ahead of the legal 2038 deadline, as rising carbon prices and market dynamics steadily erode coal’s competitiveness. Despite political pressure and energy shocks, built-in policy flexibility and emissions trading are driving closures, with analysts concluding the market is now outpacing legislation in pushing coal out of the power system. Clean Energy Wire

More African children are finishing school than ever before
New data from UNICEF shows major gains in school completion across sub-Saharan Africa since 2000, with primary completion rising to 68%, lower secondary to 49%, and upper secondary to 28%. The improvements reflect two decades of investment in access to education, in a continent where nearly 40% of the population is under 15. Mauritius, Botswana and South Africa now rank among the continent’s strongest performers in primary school completion.

Colombia’s multidimensional poverty rate falls below 10%. Colombia reduced its multidimensional poverty rate from 11.5% in 2024 to 9.9% in 2025, continuing a long-term decline that has cut poverty by more than two-thirds since 2010. Reminder: multidimensional poverty tracks not only income, but also access to education, healthcare, housing and basic infrastructure, offering a broader picture of living standards. Colombia Reports

For seven years, Côte d’Ivoire has theoretically had universal health care; now it finally has the funding to make it work. Last year, France24 reported that Côte d’Ivoire’s universal health care was spotty: politicians had focused on enrolling people but hadn’t actually expanded services to meet demand. Now the country has finalised a $225m deal with the World Bank to make sure the care is there. A particular priority? Early childhood development services, which are expected to reach more than 730,000 children.

A “particularly vocal grandma” named Pinchy is helping us decode the language of sperm whales. When sperm whales talk to each other, they produce rapid-fire bursts of clicks called codas: 21 codas, researchers thought — a small, fixed vocabulary. Then Project CETI showed up in the Caribbean with $33 million and a team of machine-learning experts from MIT.

In 2024, they showed that whales were modulating four independent properties (rhythm, tempo, rubato, and ornamentation) to produce not 21 but 156 distinguishable codas — a “phonetic alphabet.” November 2025: acoustic patterns inside the clicks function like vowels.

And now they’ve found coarticulation — the same phenomenon that softens the d in “handbag” because of the adjacent b. The CETI team analysed 1,100 codas from 15 whales off Dominica, with chatty matriarch Pinchy (”she’s very structured,” says linguistics lead Gašper Beguš) doing a lot of the heavy lifting. The rules are getting clearer now — maybe soon we’ll find out what it all means. National Geographic

Solutions Journalism

Two important new sources have just launched…

The first is from Mongabay: a dedicated solutions desk. This is really exciting, these guys are the gold standard for environmental journalism. Here’s the editorial from Mongabay announcing the launch, and here’s their founder, Rhett Ayers-Butler:

For years, environmental reporting has understandably focused on crisis. Forest loss, species decline, violence against environmental defenders, and accelerating climate change demand scrutiny. Journalism has an obligation to document these realities with clarity and evidence.

But focusing exclusively on what is broken can leave readers with a distorted sense of the landscape. It risks overlooking the many places where people are actively testing ways to repair damage, protect ecosystems and build more resilient relationships with nature.

Solutions journalism expands that picture by asking a different set of questions. When communities manage fisheries successfully, what enabled that governance to emerge? When forest loss slows in a region once thought irretrievable, what policies or practices made the difference? When wildlife populations rebound, what combination of science, funding and local leadership sustained that recovery?

The second is for all our Canadian readers, it’s called Be Giant.

Today we launch Be Giant, Canada’s newest media outlet, and one with a deliberate sense of optimism. Backed by the Weston family, we have purpose-built this new non-profit, non-partisan organization to explore the breakthroughs and innovations answering Canada’s greatest challenges, as well as the people relentlessly driving those ideas forward.

Our core idea is that the knowledge of what is already being accomplished in Canada can inspire greater confidence to face down our existential challenges.

We believe there is an urgent need to tell these stories.

Read more

Hi everyone, Gus here. Two weeks ago I was a guest curator at TED in Vancouver. Over the last six months I’ve been working with their team to create a session based on a simple premise: that some of the most consequential gains being made in the world right now aren’t getting anything close to the attention they deserve.

We are very good at telling stories of doom and destruction. We are far less good at doing the same for progress, repair, and regeneration. This was a chance to bring some of the work we do here at Fix The News to a stage that, better than any other, knows how to tell a story.

We covered a lot of ground! Amy Bowers Cordalis on the restoration of the Klamath, Felix Brooks-Church, who’s been on our podcast, on global food fortification. One of my all-time heroes, Bill McKibben on solar energy, and Saloni Dattani, one of my favourite researchers, on global health. Drew McCartor from Pure Earth, who’ve spent 25 years fighting lead poisoning worldwide, and Rapelang Rabana and Imagine Worldwide, who are bringing education to eastern and southern Africa. Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López, on what freedom really costs, and we even landed an interview with President Vjosa Osmani of Kosovo, who has just ended her term.

The speakers were remarkable. What was rarer, though, was the feeling of the session itself. TED audiences are used to moments of inspiration and lessons in human ingenuity, but this was something different: a sustained, two hour-long focus on how progress actually happens, why it happens, what keeps it going, and what it requires. A chance to take the mechanics of getting things right as seriously as we usually take the mechanics of what’s going wrong.

Judging from the response, it landed, and in the days that followed, something else became apparent. There’s a familiar observation in solutions journalism: good news happens slowly, bad news happens fast. It’s one of the central claims for why our information environment skews negative, and broadly, it’s correct. But there’s a second asymmetry that matters just as much.

Progress, almost without exception, requires a lot of people working together over a long time. Everyone on that stage was an avatar for a larger collective effort, and what I found so interesting was that some were almost tortured by the fact. Amy Bowers Cordalis kept telling me in the days before her talk: this feels wrong, hundreds of people made this happen, I need to show their faces, I need to tell their stories. But she only had ten minutes.

Felix Brooks-Church is the quintessential archetype of an inventor who changes the world with a machine. But the first people he talked about were others working on food fortification, because he knows the machine doesn’t fix anything without an ecosystem. Bill McKibben is one of those people who I think understands at almost a cellular level that real change doesn’t happen without movements: the slow, unglamorous business of organising millions around an issue.

This is all wildly unfair, because on the other side of the ledger many of the world’s most pressing crises trace back to just a handful of people. Specifically, one person in the United States, one in Russia, and one in Israel. Between those three men, you can plausibly account for 60 to 70 percent of the major geopolitical damage of the past few years.

Three men. The structural disparity is staggering. Enormous destructive power accrues to a handful of individuals, while the work of repair requires a vast, distributed, often invisible effort sustained by millions over decades. It is so, so much easier to break than to build.

Like any good solutions journalist, I love Margaret Mead’s famous quote about small groups of citizens changing the world, but it’s incomplete. Small groups may start things, but by the time the river runs free, or the disease is eliminated, or the law gets passed, the group isn’t small anymore. It’s made of hundreds of negotiators and agitators, people that are good with spreadsheets and people who are good with people and people who dig trenches in the rain.

Amy knew this. That’s what was eating at her. And she wasn’t alone. Every speaker on that stage was aware, to varying degrees, that they were standing in for something larger.

I am so grateful to TED for offering these amazing people a platform to tell their extraordinary stories with the craft they deserve. Nobody does it better. But I’m still not sure humanity has a good format for collective stories. We know how to put one person on a stage. We know how to film a reel, or write a headline. We have almost no idea how to tell a story where the protagonist is a thousand people working across twenty years.

I don’t have a fix, but I think it matters to name it. Every time a major breakthrough gets compressed into a press release with a single name, something fundamental about how progress works disappears. Behind each of the faces on that TED stage, and all the stories you’re going to read this week, remember: there are multitudes.

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This week’s top stories

We have the first national-level evidence that the malaria vaccines are working. With the exception of COVID-19, malaria vaccines have seen the fastest rollout in history; they are now in routine use across 25 African countries. Anecdotal data has suggested substantial reductions in severe cases and hospital admissions - but now we have the first official figures, from Burkina Faso, one of the world’s ten highest burden countries. Between 2024 and 2025 malaria cases fell by 32% and malaria‑related deaths by 44%. That’s in a single year.

The WHO also just prequalified the first malaria treatment for newborns and infants, and approved three new rapid diagnostic tests to identify a missing strain. Keeping this progress going is not going to be easy - especially in the face of aid cuts and climate change. But this is still incredibly good news, can we just take a moment?

Six environmental activists from around the world have been awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize. For the first time, all six winners are women. One of them is Yuvelis Morales Blanco, who helped stop fracking along Colombia’s Magdalena river. Yuvelis grew up in Puerto Wilches, where “dark spots on the river meant that we were not going to eat.”

In 2019, she co-founded the youth-led group Aguawil, going door-to-door, organising protests and community education and eventually securing a national fracking moratorium. This was all before the age of 24 (and while death threats have forced her into temporary exile in France). Inside Climate News

You can read more about the other Goldman Prize winners here, who collectively protected a rare bat in Nigeria by training communities to prevent wildfires, won a South Korean court ruling requiring stronger climate targets, stopped a UK oil drilling project after a decade of legal challenges, pushed a global mining giant to address toxic waste from an abandoned mine in Papua New Guinea, and helped block the largest proposed open-pit mine in North American history.

Dark matter is 85% of the universe’s mass, and nobody knows what it is. That turns out to be fertile ground for a conversation between faith and science. A recent feature from the Associated Press has been making the rounds, about how some of the world’s leading dark matter researchers think about the spiritual dimensions of their work, and the answers are more interesting than you’d expect.

Vera Rubin, the astronomer who provided the first robust evidence for dark matter’s existence, embraced her Jewish faith. For Doug Watson, a postdoctoral fellow, the gaze of Lord Krishna seems “eerily similar” to the observer effect in quantum mechanics. And when Ken Freeman, the astrophysicist who provided some of the first hard evidence that spiral galaxies are held together by something invisible, was asked whether his lifelong pull toward dark matter might be the Holy Spirit at work, he didn’t say yes — but he didn’t quite say no either. “I would not paint it that way,” he said, “but it’s a nagging possibility.”

Not every scientist agrees the universe needs a sacred dimension. But when 85% of the cosmos is something we can only feel by pull, perhaps awe as a response is unsurprising?

Telehealth is protecting reproductive rights in the United States. Abortions in the US rose slightly to 1.126 million in 2025, even as cross-state travel fell from 170,000 to 142,000 visits. Telehealth and shield laws have helped keep access open, allowing clinicians in shield states such as New York and Massachusetts to prescribe abortion pills by post to patients in ban states such as Texas and Alabama. Reminder: banning abortion does not lead to fewer abortions. The Guardian

The United Kingdom has ended prosecutions for women who terminate their own pregnancies, as well as approving pardons for women convicted of doing abortions illegally, and expunging the police records of those arrested and investigated over illegal abortions. Research suggests that as many women have been charged in the last 20 years as in the entire 19th century, when judges often treated defendants with greater compassion. The Guardian

Saudi-backed teams have cleared over 550,000 explosives in Yemen. Since 2018, Saudi aid agency KSrelief’s Masam project has been removing landmines and improvised devices, helping make roads, farms, villages and public facilities safer for civilians. Almost 750 people, including specialists from around the world, are involved in KSrelief’s wider $294 million mine-clearance programme, which also supports work in Iraq and Azerbaijan. Arab News

Algeria has eliminated trachoma as a public-health problem, becoming the 29th country to do so.

Australia has eliminated trachoma as a public health problem, becoming the 30th country to do so.

Countries ditch the UN to create the first fossil-fuel transition roadmap
“Refreshing”, “highly successful” and “groundbreaking.” 57 countries, representing one-third of the global economy, have finished meeting in Santa Marta, Colombia, moving beyond abstract pledges to begin designing national pathways away from coal, oil and gas. The summit created three workstreams on transition planning, subsidy reform and carbon-intensive trade, and is backed by a new, powerful science panel Carbon Brief

China is linking provincial leaders’ promotions directly to climate performance. China says it will grade provincial leaders on emissions peaking, clean energy uptake and fossil fuel limits, with results directly affecting promotions and discipline. The new system ties performance-based governance to decarbonisation, and is likely to turbocharge the country’s already blistering clean energy transition. Bloomberg

The eastern barred bandicoot, once extinct in the wild, is being reintroduced in Australia using a ‘genetic rescue’ approach that mixes mainland and Tasmanian populations. Conservationists aim to establish at least 500 animals across five sites; earlier this week, 100 of them were released onto Australia’s Phillip Island.

Renewables cut European power prices by 24% on average. Wind and solar expansion reduced wholesale electricity prices by an average 24.2% across 19 European countries between 2023 and 2025, weakening the link between power costs and volatile gas markets. Solar alone has saved countries in the bloc over €3 billion since March 2026. Euronews

Mummies with golden tongues, and a piece of Homer tucked inside one of them. That’s what archaeologists just pulled out of a Roman-era tomb at Al-Bahnasa in Egypt, the ancient city once called Oxyrhynchus. The mummies were wrapped in linen patterned with geometric designs, and four of them had metal tongues placed in their mouths — three gold, one copper. The idea was that the dead would need them to speak in the afterlife. But the wildest find was paper, not metal. Inside one mummy’s wrappings, the team found a scrap of papyrus carrying a passage from Book II of Homer’s Iliad — the famous “Catalogue of Ships” that lists every Greek crew sailing to Troy. Smithsonian

Railway solar project turns unused track space into energy
Switzerland is testing a simple idea: lay removable solar panels between train tracks to generate power from space that normally sits unused. A pilot in Buttes has installed 48 panels over 100 metres, producing about 16,000 kWh a year while trains keep running. If it scales, rail lines could double up as clean energy sources, without taking up extra land. SNCF

New Zealand midwives win a landmark pay-equity case. In a case brought by the New Zealand College of Midwives, the High Court has ruled that the government unlawfully discriminated against self-employed midwives by underpaying them for years. The decision “found a significant gap between midwives’ pay and the value of their work.” Um… yes. PMN

An Italian court has recognised biodiversity harm in a landmark case after the illegal extraction of over 1,000 rare cacti from Chile, linking a global trafficking network to ecological damage. The ruling allows a conservation group to claim damages for harm to its mission, establishing a new legal pathway to treat biodiversity loss as a civil injury and giving another option for enforcement beyond criminal penalties. The Revelator

Once a poster child for drought, San Diego now produces surplus water: enough to export to other states, thanks to decades of investment in recycling and desalination. The city is now negotiating deals to supply Arizona and Nevada, easing pressure on the Colorado River. Wall Street Journal

The EU’s top court has struck down Hungary’s five year old anti-LGBTQ ‘propaganda’ law, after a challenge by the European Commission backed by 16 member states and the European Parliament.The court found that “the law is contrary to the very identity of the European Union as a common legal order in a society in which pluralism prevails.” Washington Blade

Sodium-ion batteries are hitting the market at scale. These batteries last longer than their lithium ion counterparts, work in extreme temperatures, and their components can be sourced sustainably, reducing the harm from mining (sodium is 1,000 times more abundant than lithium). They’ve long been the holy grail of battery technology, but while we’ve heard many promises, there’s been little movement. Now China’s CATL has signed a deal to supply 60 GWh of these batteries to energy storage integrator HyperStrong — batteries that can slot into existing systems, making them easy to roll out. Electrek

And finally, more than one in four parliamentarians worldwide are now women, up from 11.7% in 1997. It’s been a slow steady climb, one that’s continued through political turbulence, economic shocks and a global pandemic.

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Myra takes us behind the scenes to unpack how these stories are found, verified and told inside one of the world’s largest media organisations. She also reflects on her lifelong relationship with the BBC World Service - and why telling stories of progress may be one of journalism’s most important challenges, and greatest opportunities, today.

In this episode:

·      What solutions journalism actually is - and why it matters

·      Why “good news” still faces resistance in mainstream media

·      Growing up in Kenya “raised by radio” 

·      How COVID and George Floyd coverage reshaped her family’s media diet

·      Collaboration as a practical remedy

·      Why audiences are hungry for stories of progress

·      What the future of journalism could look like

Timestamps:
02:15 What Myra really thinks of the news
03:50 What counts as someone fixing the world?
05:19 Inside the BBC: Pitching “What’s Working”

09:13 Raised by radio in Kenya
10:43 How the BBC shaped Myra’s worldview
12:16 Myra’s journey from solutions sceptic to evangelist

15.47 Gus & Amy’s midpoint reflections

17.11 The power of Kangaroo Care as a solution

19.03 The pattern of change

20.07 What makes someone fix the world?

22.13 Dr Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka and conservation through public health 

24.42 How being detained in Uganda exposed deeper challenges within journalism

26.56 The work ahead for solutions journalism

28.48 How to change your children’s media diet

31.55 Myra’s remedy for the world – collaboration

32.55 The personal impact of solutions journalism 

34.00 Gus & Amy’s final reflections 

Find out more:

👉 BBC People Fixing The World

👉 Podcast link

👉 Linkedin
👉 Instagram

About Fix The News:
Fix The News is a solutions-focused media platform sharing stories from the frontlines of progress - exploring what’s working in the world and the people making it happen.

Subscribe & follow:
If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast and leave a review - it helps more people find these stories.

Production credits:
Hosted by Angus Hervey and Amy Davoren-Rose
Produced by Fix The News
Audio production: Anthony Badolato, Hear That!

 This episode was produced in Australia on the lands of the Gadigal, Wurundjeri and Woi Wurrung peoples.

NewsFix has officially moved to its own feed! You can check it out here or search 'NewsFix' on your favourite podcast app.

This podcast is brought to you by ⁠Fix The News⁠. Hosted by Anthony Badolato, ⁠Hear That!⁠ If you want to get in touch with the team, email amy@fixthenews.com

This week’s top stories

The bacterial flagellar motor is finally understood after 50 years.
The flagellar motor is the combination propeller/brain that enables single-celled bacteria to move toward food sources. It rotates at several hundred revolutions per second — faster than the flywheel in a race car engine — to twirl a tail-like flagellum that pushes the cell along.

This amazing, self-assembling, signal-processing, direction-switching molecular machine is so powerful, yet so spare, that billions of years later, it’s still used by bacteria in virtually every gut and puddle on Earth. Now, more than half a century after its discovery, scientists have figured out its its molecular structure. The final pieces of the puzzle fell into place in March 2026.

“My lifelong quest is now fulfilled. I finally understand how this thing I’ve been studying for 50 years actually works. That’s about as satisfying as can be.”

For the first time, clean energy has met all of the world’s growth in electricity demand. Last year global electricity demand rose by 2.8%, but, for the first time ever, every additional bit of that new demand was met by clean power. Fossil fuel generation fell by 0.2%. This last number is the important one, and needs some context.

There have been three other years in this century where fossil fuel generation hasn’t grown, but all of those have been due to economic shocks. This is the first time that global electricity demand has grown at a normal rate and fossil fuels haven’t budged. Solar and wind together covered 99%, and nuclear and hydro pushed it past 100%.

The structural turning point we have spent so many decades waiting for has finally arrived. It is really, really good news. Take a moment to savour it.

There are so many other highlights in Ember’s Global Electricity Review 2026.

📈 Renewables overtook coal in 2025 for the first time in over 100 years.

🔥 Coal fell below a third of global electricity for the first time ever, and is now losing market share In every major region including Asia.

🇨🇳 🇮🇳 Fossil generation declined in China and India last year due to record clean power growth, balancing out small increases in the EU and the US.

🌍 The transition is global - several other growth markets, including Brazil and Pakistan, met their entire increase (100%+) in electricity demand with low-carbon sources.

🔋 Battery storage deployment rose 46% year-on-year, while pack prices fell 45%.

Who is the green hero behind it all?

President Donald Trump calls environmentalists “terrorists.” Yet he is responsible for destroying more oil and gas infrastructure, and possibly more fossil-fuel demand, than the most optimistic ecoterrorist could in their wildest dreams. By going to war with Iran, the president, who has been openly hostile toward the clean-energy transition, may unintentionally turn out to be one of its greatest allies.
Mark Gongloff - Bloomberg

Donald Trump has done more to accelerate the energy transition than anyone else alive. The attack on Iran is not the way any of us wanted this to happen, but the unintended consequences of Trump’s pointless war could help sink Trumpism everywhere – and the corrupt and filthy industry that props it up.
George Monbiot - The Guardian

Africa’s measles drive has saved millions of lives. 44 African countries have added a second dose of the measles vaccine to their schedules since the turn of the century, lifting coverage from 5% in 2000 to 55% by 2024. Those efforts have halved measles deaths, cut overall cases by 40%, and averted an estimated 19.5 million deaths. WHO Africa

One-shot gene therapy is helping the deaf hear. The OTOF gene makes otoferlin, a protein the inner ear needs to send sound to the brain. Those born without this gene are deaf… but maybe only temporarily. Researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute injected ten OTOF-deaf people with a working copy of the otoferlin-making gene, delivered straight into the cochlea via synthetic virus.

The hearing of all ten improved drastically: on average, the quietest sound they could hear dropped from 106 decibels to 52, roughly the difference between a chainsaw and normal conversation. Children responded fastest; one seven-year-old was chatting with her mother four months after therapy. The treatment has shown no adverse side effects, so the Karolinska team is now looking to try the same setup on different deafness genes. ScienceDaily

China’s 40-year “Wild Horse Return Program” has pushed Przewalski’s horse from extinction in the wild, to self-sustaining herds, with the national population now above 900. That gives China roughly one-third of the global total, a striking turnaround for the world’s only surviving wild horse species after it vanished in the 1970s. China Daily

Colombia and the Netherlands have gathered more than 50 countries for a new “coalition of the willing” to advance a transition away from fossil fuels, sidestepping stalled UN climate talks. Representing about one-third of global demand, the bloc aims to design financing and policy pathways as energy shocks expose fossil dependence, signalling a shift toward smaller, faster-moving alliances to drive change. The Guardian

Scientists have created the first-ever detailed 3D map of the clitoris using super-powered X-rays from a particle accelerator called a synchrotron, the kind of equipment normally reserved for materials science and particle physics. What they found: five large nerve trunks inside the clitoral glans, branching toward the surface in a tree-like pattern, with extensions into the hood and mons pubis unaccounted for by previous anatomical models.

This has immediate consequences for anyone performing pelvic surgery, gender-affirming procedures, or reconstructions after female genital mutilation. Right now, about 22% of women who undergo clitoral reconstructive surgery experience reduced sensation afterward, and a better nerve map could reduce that number. The study is a preprint (not yet peer-reviewed) but is, as lead author Ju Young Lee put it, a “starting point” for clitoris science. The Guardian

India overhauls its legal code to restore proportionality. The recently passed Jan Vishwas Act changes 79 laws, decriminalising more than 700 minor offences and replacing imprisonment with warnings and fines. Previously, a street vendor without a licence could land in prison for a year; a company failing to file returns faced the same criminal exposure as genuinely harmful conduct. That era is now, formally, over. The reform marks one of the country’s largest ever efforts to curb criminalisation. Financial Express

Seagrass is rebounding off the coast of France, and could provide a model for the rest of the Mediterranean. Wastewater treatment and coastal protections in Marseille have enabled the dramatic recovery of Neptune grass (Posidonia oceanica), the Mediterranean’s most important endemic seagrass. In some areas coverage has has risen from 6% to 81%. Researchers say it’s a valuable lesson in “passive restoration”: sometimes the most efficient way to restore an ecosystem is to reduce human pressure and let it recover on its own. Mongabay

... but sometimes, efficiency be damned, people choose to replant it. In Australia’s Shark Bay, an Indigenous-led effort is replanting 4,500-year-old seagrass by hand. The enormous seagrass (the size of Paris) is a self-cloning hybrid, likely an unusual polyploid that carries two full sets of chromosomes and can’t reproduce in the “usual way.” This hasn’t stopped it thriving for several millennia, but in 2011, the seagrass lost a quarter of its area in a single heat wave. Michael Wear, an Indigenous Australian whose family has lived in Shark Bay for millennia, saw the collapse of the meadow in real time.

I remember thinking, okay. What do we do now? When Country changes, you ask why, and you act.

In response, he founded Tidal Moon, a startup replanting the seagrass by hand. To fund the work, Tidal Moon is reviving an ancient sea cucumber trade: the animals are a delicacy across Asia, and as bottom-feeders they enrich sediment in ways that help seagrass regrow. Conservation International

Teen births plummet in the United States thanks to decades of family planning. Teen birth rates reached 11.7 births per 1,000 in 2025, down from 61.8 in 1991. The decline reflects decades of expanded access to contraception and reproductive health services, including Title X, which has prevented an estimated 20 million unintended pregnancies. NPR

Paraguay’s poverty reduction shows what happens when governments focus not just on growth, but on productivity and jobs. In the last 20 years, poverty has plummeted from over 50% to 16%; 300,000 people have escaped poverty in the last two years alone. The World Bank says the decisive factor is how the gains from growth has been distributed: labour income has been the main driver of poverty reduction as employment has shifted towards more stable, better- paid work.

The global suicide rate has fallen by around 40% since the 1990s. Our World in Data reports that the age-standardised global rate fell from about 15 to 9 deaths per 100,000 people between the mid-1990s and 2023.

Chicago has made every public school ID a library card. This is so good. More than 315,000 public school students will gain immediate access to the cities’s libraries using existing school IDs. A pilot launched in 2022 increased library access by 63% among economically disadvantaged students and by 81% among English language learners. Block Club Chicago

With this expansion, every student — no matter their ZIP code, school enrollment or their age, will have access to library cards and programs and resources that make their lives more enriched.
Brandon Johnson, Mayor of Chicago

HIV miracle drug begins rollout in earnest. Lenacapavir is a twice-yearly drug offering near-complete protection against HIV. Nigeria just became the seventh African country to begin deliveries, and The Global Fund plans to provide support to 15 additional countries by the end of this year, including Thailand, Indonesia, Honduras, Georgia, the Philippines, and Ukraine. Early distribution is still limited, but new manufacturing methods could cut costs and expand supply.

Germany turns former coal pits into vast lake district. Eastern Germany is completing the transformation of former coal mines into the 144 km² Lusatian Lakeland, Europe’s largest artificial lake landscape, with Lake Sedlitz opening this month. The €13.8 billion restoration is converting a fossil fuel scar into water storage, tourism infrastructure and new regional employment. What was once considered a wound in the landscape is thus gradually becoming one of the most unusual natural paradises in Europe. Euronews

Mexico is planning free universal healthcare for 120 million people. President Claudia Sheinbaum’s recent decree aims to unify a system currently defined by unequal access, patchy coverage and out-of-pocket costs. It also builds on a longer record of expanding public health coverage. The first phase began this month, with citizens aged 85 and older now eligible. From January 2027, healthcare institutions will start working together to bridge gaps in access. Novara Media

Next-generation batteries cut EV charging times to just a few minutes. China’s CATL has unveiled new EV batteries capable of charging from 10% to nearly full in about six minutes, and with a range of 1,500 km (more than you get from any tank of fuel). Financial Times

A federal court has struck down major Trump-era attacks on the Endangered Species Act. The first Trump administration pushed through a series of rollbacks that weakened habitat protections and made it easier for agencies to approve harmful projects based on vague, future mitigation promises. During the Biden administration, some of that damage was reversed through new regulations, but not enough to fully restore the ESA’s original protective force; now a federal court has made clear that agencies must use the best available science and must firmly commit to any measures they rely on to reduce harm to imperilled species. Earthjustice

And finally, from four people that have been further than anyone else:

Read more

Rob & Ken share the reality of delivering 100 tonnes of grain into a crisis zone - from complex logistics and rising fuel costs to working outside traditional aid systems. Backed by a groundswell of public support, Grain of Hope challenges the idea that global hunger is too big to tackle and shows what’s possible when ordinary people decide to act. 

In this episode:

·      How Grain of Hope started with a single conversation

·      The real cost of shipping food aid

·      Why Sudan - and why now

·      What works (and doesn’t) in traditional aid

·      The power of multiculturalism

·      From emergency aid to long-term food systems

·      What it takes to act on global problems from a local place

Timestamps:
00:40 Why This Story Matters
02:33 Meeting Ken and Rob
03:06 The Real Challenges
05:11 From Idea to Mission
06:49 Why Sudan, Why Now
09:06 Community Backs Grain of Hope
14:30 Leeton: The UN of Country Towns
17:04 Stubborn Vision, Flexible Details
19:20 Growing Food vs Moving Systems
21:54 The Team behind Grain of Hope
24:39 Five-Year Vision and Self-Sufficiency
29:21 How You Can Help
31:06 Remedies for a Hard World
32:24 Amy & Gus Reflect and Wrap Up
34:21 Credits and Subscribe

Support Grain of Hope:
If you want to help get this shipment to Sudan - or support future projects - you can find out more below.

👉 FTN Story
👉 Donate

About Fix The News:
Fix The News is a solutions-focused media platform sharing stories from the frontlines of progress - exploring what’s working in the world and the people making it happen.

Subscribe & follow:
If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast and leave a review - it helps more people find these stories.

Production credits:
Hosted by Angus Hervey and Amy Davoren-Rose
Produced by Fix The News
Audio production: Anthony Badolato, Hear That!

 This episode was produced in Australia on the lands of the Gadigal, Wurundjeri and Woi Wurrung peoples.

NewsFix has moved to its own feed! You can check it out here or search 'NewsFix' on your favourite podcast app. Make sure you look out for the new artwork - we've had a pretty big glow-up! If you need a bit more time, don't worry, we’ll keep popping up here for a couple more weeks .

This podcast is brought to you by ⁠Fix The News⁠. Hosted by Anthony Badolato, ⁠Hear That!⁠ If you want to get in touch with the team, email amy@fixthenews.com

Hi everyone, Gus here. There won’t be a regular edition next week as I’ll be travelling to Vancouver for the annual TED conference. I’m guest curating a session on progress, with an incredible lineup of speakers including many names that will be familiar to readers of this newsletter: Bill McKibben is speaking about solar energy, Amy Bowers Cordalis on the restoration of the Klamath River, Saloni Dattani on global health, Felix Brooks-church on solving hidden hunger, Leopoldo López Mendoza on resistance to authoritarianism, Rapelang Rabana on literacy, Drew McCartor on combating lead poisoning, and President Vjosa Osmani of Kosovo, on democracy.

We’ll be sharing all their talks here as they come out over the next few months. Thanks in advance for your patience. We’ll be back to regular programming in a fortnight :)

This week’s top stories

Four humans just flew behind the Moon…and photographed Earthrise.
At 12:37 a.m. on April 6, 2026, four people crossed an invisible line in space. The Artemis II spacecraft Orion, carrying NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, entered the Moon’s sphere of influence. About an hour later, Koch radioed down: “We are now falling to the Moon rather than rising away from Earth.”

It has been 53 years since any human was this close to the lunar surface. The last crew to see the Moon with their own eyes was Apollo 17, in December 1972. Those astronauts walked on it. This crew would not land, but they would do something no one has done since the Nixon administration: swing around the far side of the moon and try to photograph a new Earthrise.

At 6:43 p.m. ET, the spacecraft slipped behind the Moon and the Deep Space Network lost Orion’s signal. For 40 minutes, the crew could not communicate with Earth: complete radio silence as they floated further from our home than any human beings have ever been. At the apex of their figure-8 path, Orion was 252,756 miles from Earth — 4,111 miles farther than the previous distance, a record set by Apollo 13 under less pleasant circumstances.

Then, at 7:24, Orion came around the Moon, and Earth rose.
It wasn’t the same Earthrise that Bill Anders photographed from Apollo 8 on Christmas Eve 1968 — it couldn’t be. Anders was 60 miles above the lunar surface; this crew was 4,000. Anders hadn’t planned the shot; he scrambled for colour film as the blue marble slid into view. This crew knew it was coming and had Nikon D5s ready. But the feeling, by all accounts, was the same. Koch, who had hung a print of Anders’s photograph in her childhood bedroom, spoke first as communications were restored: “It is so great to hear from Earth again.”

The Earthrise photograph from the Artemis II mission hasn’t yet been released in high definition, and won’t be until the Orion astronauts return home. But a lower-definition version has been published in PetaPixel and Scientific American: here it is.

Other tidbits from the Artemis II mission:

• The Artemis II astronauts sent back photographs of the moon’s far side, but they also studied it with their eyes. “The human eye is basically the best camera that could ever or will ever exist,” said Kelsey Young, science lead for the Artemis II mission. “The number of receptors in the human eye far outweighs what a camera is able to do.”

  • Case in point: the crew reported colour nuances on the moon’s surface — not the silver-grey of photographs, but browns and blues, subtle shifts that reveal mineral composition and age.

  • The astronauts observed two fresh lunar craters, and proposed naming one of them “Carroll,” after Commander Reid Wiseman’s late wife, who died in 2020.

• Glover was captivated by “the terminator,” the boundary between the Moon's light and dark halves, describing it in vivid terms: "The islands of light, the valleys that look like black holes — you'd fall straight to the centre of the Moon if you stepped in some of those. It's just so visually captivating."

• The Artemis crew captured the moon eclipsing the sun. Totality lasted for nearly 54 minutes, and Hansen requested that the science team on Earth should "come up with some new superlatives" because he lacked the words to express what he was seeing. In the bottom right of the picture you can see from left to right, Saturn, Mars and Mercury.

• Yes, the toilet broke. No, it wasn’t a disaster. While mission control worked to fix the out-of-commission commode, Glover, Wiseman, Koch and Hansen did their business in bags, just like astronauts did in the bad old Apollo days.

• Instead of bread, the astronauts ate tortillas — a practical necessity, not a statement piece. Bread crumbles, and in zero-g, the crumbs get everywhere, including into the equipment, which can actually endanger astronauts. Tortillas do no such thing, so they’re now standard astronaut fare.

  • Thank Rodolfo Neri Vela, a 1985 payload specialist on the Atlantis mission and the first Mexican in space.

• On Easter (or “Wester,” if you’re Eastern Orthodox), the Artemis II astronauts hid eggs around the cabin, and engaged in an Easter egg hunt. “They were the dehydrated scrambled egg variety,” said Koch, “but we’re all pretty happy with them.”

• The astronauts didn’t just capture Earthrise; they also captured “Earthset,” the earth disappearing around the curve of the moon. Unlike the new Earthrise “Earthset” got the full social media treatment and may become the mission’s most iconic photograph.

…or will the most iconic photograph be “Hello, World” released on April 3, a full-frontal image of our planet with glowing auroras at the poles?

Orion is now heading home. Splashdown is scheduled for April 10 off the coast of San Diego. Most of the photographs won’t be downloaded until after the crew returns — there’s too much data for the Deep Space Network to relay in transit. But Wiseman gave us a taste during the live broadcast, holding up his iPhone to the camera to flash a close-up of the lunar surface he’d snapped through the window.

What’s next? Artemis III. Boots on the ground. The first Moon landing since 1972.

…and now, back to Earth…

The world has finally crossed the 10% mark for ocean protection. In the past two years, we’ve protected 5 million km² of ocean, an area larger than the EU. Satellite tracking and machine learning are making enforcement easier too, even for nations with small budgets and huge protected areas, like tiny Palau. Leading the charge is Global Fishing Watch, which expanded its monitoring to 73 million km² last year (around a third of all national waters) enabling over 400 sanctions against illegal fishing activity.

The last two years have also seen a hidden surge in women’s rights. Between 2023 and 2025, 68 countries enacted 113 reforms strengthening workplace protections, expanding parental leave, and removing barriers to employment. While the gaps are still stark, these reforms will drive real progress, linking legal rights to real-world economic gains at a global scale.

The UN Special Programme on Human Reproduction’s 2025 annual report reveals women today are 40% less likely to die from pregnancy or childbirth than in 2000. That’s astonishing progress, and there are powerful reasons to believe it will continue: in 2025 the WHO issued new guidance on standardising postpartum haemorrhage treatment, the single leading cause of maternal mortality globally, responsible for around a quarter of all deaths.

☝️ possibly the most beautifully designed UN report you will ever see.

Meet “Mother,” the machine that can keep a uterus alive outside the body. Spanish scientists have successfully built a perfusion machine — plastic arteries, a pump for a heart, an oxygenator for lungs — that can keep a uterus alive outside the human body. The first test kept a donated uterus alive for 24 hours; now they’re aiming for 28 days: long enough to watch a full menstrual cycle and study implantation (the moment an embryo burrows into the uterine lining). The machine is technically called PUPER, which stands for “preservation of the uterus in perfusion.” But González’s colleague Xavier Santamaria says the team has adopted a nickname for it: “We call it ‘Mother.’” MIT Technology Review

Thailand has classified sexual harassment as a criminal offence. The amendments to the Criminal Code cover harassment by words, gestures and stalking (online and in person) with penalties rising in cases involving repeated abuse, public settings, and the abuse of authority or children under 15. UN Women

Japan has ended its sole-custody-only rule for divorce, allowing parents to negotiate joint custody for the first time in more than a century. The change, which took effect on April 1, brings Japan into line with the rest of the G7 and explicitly requires parents to respect each other’s positions and cooperate “in the best interests of their child”. The Guardian

South Africa’s HPV programme cuts dangerous infections by 83%. A decade after South Africa launched school-based HPV vaccination for Grade 4 girls, infections from the two main cancer-causing strains have fallen 83% among 17 to 18-year-olds. It’s the clearest evidence yet that HPV programmes can deliver population-level gains in high-burden African settings. The Lancet

Mozambique has wiped its IMF debt to zero. The country cleared its $701 million IMF debt by late March, making Mozambique one of a growing number of African countries with no IMF debt at all (Nigeria and Namibia cleared theirs last year). The move doesn’t end the country’s wider debt problems, but it does remove an important external liability. Business Insider Africa

As American aid to Ukraine has fallen, Europe has stepped up to keep support flowing. In 2025, the Nordic and Baltic states — despite representing just 8% of the GDP of tracked European donors — provided 33% of military aid, helping offset the evaporation of American support. Kiel Institute

The war in Iran has pushed Asia toward solar, not coal. Fears that disruptions from the war would drive Asia back to coal are overstated. Even a worst-case scenario would add only about 100 million tonnes to a 9 billion-tonne coal market, equivalent to the impact of a weather swing. Instead, higher electricity prices and faster permitting are accelerating rooftop solar adoption across the region, reinforcing a structural shift away from fossil fuel dependence. Bloomberg

The clean energy industry is taking the gloves off in the United States. After losing federal subsidies under the Trump administration, US renewable energy firms are shifting from advocacy to direct political spending. Backed by wealthy investors, the new campaigns aim to reshape support by emphasizing jobs, domestic manufacturing and lower costs, signalling an industry that is now willing to compete in the same political arena as fossil fuels. NYT

Renewables hit a record share of US electricity, overtaking fossil gas
Renewables generated over a third of US electricity in March 2026 for the first time, surpassing gas as wind and solar reached a record 26% combined share. The milestone reflects rapid structural growth, especially in solar, while coal fell to just 12%, one of its lowest levels on record. Ember

Electric vehicles won every major category at the 2026 World Car Awards, from urban and luxury to performance and design. The clean sweep suggests EVs are now the benchmark for quality, efficiency and desirability across segments, even as protectionism slows access to the best global models in some markets. CleanTechnica

China just launched a nationwide healthcare insurance system for people with disabilities, with a three-year target to cover its entire population. The reform scales up pilots that began in 2016, sets a roughly 0.3% contribution rate from employers, individuals and government subsidies, and promises the same benefits in rural and urban areas. Reuters

U.S. opioid overdose deaths have fallen by nearly half from their 2023 peak. According to CDC data, annual opioid overdose deaths dropped from almost 84,000 in June 2023 to about 43,000 by October 2025, a reversal that spans all racial groups after years of harm. Some states, including North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania have seen declines of more than 50%. The shift reflects stricter border controls, wider naloxone access and more treatment, but also a huge amount of local volunteer work: grassroots groups have spent years handing out overdose-reversal kits, training neighbours, staffing drop-in centres and building trust with people often missed by formal services. WaPo

Brazil is embedding environmental enforcement into its financial system. A new rule now requires banks to check if rural loan applicants have any deforestation on their farms using satellite imagery. If bank managers detect any clearing since 2019, farmers applying for government-funded rural credit ‌must show proof of deforestation permits to get their loans approved. Reuters

Marine life rebounds off Vancouver Island after decades of loss
The waters off Vancouver Island are witnessing a striking ecological return. In north-eastern British Columbia, annual humpback sightings have risen from just seven in 2003 to more than 115, while sea otters, once hunted to near extinction, now number about 8,200. Recovering seal and sea lion populations are also drawing more orcas, a reminder that protection can rebuild entire food webs. Financial Times

And finally, in Romania’s Tarcu Mountains, European bison are proving that rewilding can change an ecosystem, not just save a species. The animals were once driven to near-extinction in Europe by hunting and habitat loss, but in areas where they have been reintroduced since 2014, researchers have found plant biomass and diversity are up by about 30%. That makes the comeback of Europe’s largest land mammal more than symbolic: a species nearly erased from the continent is now helping rebuild richer, more resilient grassland and forest-edge habitat. Ecoticias

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This week’s top stories

UNESCO’s new Global Education Monitoring Report reveals a dramatic expansion in global education since 2000. But just about every piece of reporting has focused on one statistic: the 273 million children, adolescents and youth currently excluded from education. While it’s true that progress has stalled on that front, zooming out gives a different perspective: school completion is rising at every level, and higher education participation has more than doubled in a generation. The first quarter of the 21st century has been the most expansive era for schooling in human history.

Here are some more stats buried in the report that haven’t appeared in the news media (and yes, we’ve checked).

• Since 2000, global primary and secondary enrollment has grown by 30%, reaching about 1.4 billion learners in 2024 — equivalent to 25 additional children enrolling in school every minute for the last 25 years.

• Completion rates have improved at every stage since 2000: primary completion rose from 77% to 88%, lower secondary from 60% to 78%, and upper secondary from 37% to 61%.

• Gender gaps in primary and secondary education have largely closed. Take Nepal, where girls have caught up with, and in some areas surpassed, boys.

• In 14 African countries, making education compulsory, not just free, has added more than a year of schooling for both girls and boys, while child labour laws have increased the gains further.

• And finally, congratulations to the countries who have cut out-of-school rates by 80% or more since the year 2000: Madagascar and Togo among young children, Morocco and Viet Nam among adolescents, and Georgia and Türkiye among youth. Côte d’Ivoire halved out-of-school rates across all three age groups over the same period!

Antarctic humpback whales have recovered to nearly pre-whaling levels, a remarkable reversal in the same ocean that saw more than two million whales killed in the 20th century. Humpbacks have been the fastest to rebound since commercial whaling was banned in 1986, with multiple groups of more than 100 whales recorded near the South Orkney Islands. “It’s breathtaking to see blows stretch from horizon to horizon, just as the first explorers to the region described over a century ago”. The Guardian

The first ever footage of a sperm whale birth — and it’s magical. Thanks to drone technology, scientists were able to film and analyse a remarkably social sperm whale birth, in which a calf delivered by a whale named Rounder was immediately lifted to the surface by a coordinated group that included her mother Lady Oracle, her sister Aurora, an unrelated young female Ariel, and even an adolescent male, Allan.

During the 34-minute labour off Dominica in July 2023, 11 whales surrounded Rounder, oriented themselves towards her during delivery and then towards the newborn, which was rarely left untouched and was usually in contact with at least 2 whales at once. Half the attending whales were not related to the mother, making the event especially striking as evidence that birth assistance in sperm whales may rely not just on kinship but on broader social reciprocity. The New York Times 🎁

Could Japan, Botswana and Poland be the next to legalise same-sex marriage?

Japan’s marriage equality fight is heading to the Supreme Court, putting legal recognition for same-sex couples before all 15 justices for the first time. A ruling is expected in early 2027. Japan remains the only G7 country that does not legally recognise same-sex couples, despite several lower-court rulings in recent years that found the denial of marriage benefits unconstitutional. Washington Blade

In Botswana, a High Court case scheduled to be heard in July 2026 similarly argues that, after several rulings protecting LGBTQ+ association, gender identity and same-sex intimacy, equal marriage is the next logical test of whether constitutional guarantees of dignity, liberty and equality apply in full. Washington Blade

Meanwhile, following a March 20th ruling by Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court, Poland must recognise same-sex marriages under EU law. That’s right, Poland’s highest court has ruled that authorities must recognise same-sex marriages legally performed in other EU countries, following a binding decision from the European Court of Justice. The judgment forces administrative compliance in a country with no domestic recognition, creating new legal rights for cross-border couples. Washington Blade

How far have LGBTQ rights come in Poland? Travel back in time to 2005, when Pride parades were banned in Warsaw, and the guy who banned them — Mayor Lech Kaczyński — then ran on an anti-gay stance to become Poland’s President. Kaczyński’s far-right Law & Justice party took power again in 2015, but the electorate soured on them in 2023, when a coalition of three liberal parties won 54% of the vote following the highest turnout in a Polish election since 1919. A record number of women and young people voted, many of whom said they did so to oppose Law & Justice’s platform on women’s and LGBTQ+ rights.

Iran shock speeds the shift from fossil fuels to electrification. The data is starting to come in: the Iran war is acting as an accelerant for clean energy. As oil and gas volatility pushes up costs, households from Britain to India and Pakistan are turning to EVs, solar, heat pumps and induction stoves as a hedge. These shifts will not stay local: when major economies accelerate the transition, others follow, creating spillover effects that outlast the crisis. Bloomberg / PV Magazine / CleanTechnica

Indonesia’s President, Prabowo Subianto, on the 11th March 2026:

We will build 100 gigawatts of solar panels as quickly as possible. That is my directive and my decision, and we will prove to the world that we can move faster. This situation pushes us to accelerate the energy transition.

The Philippines’ Energy Secretary Sharon Garin, on the 21st March 2026:

It’s time for us to think about electrifying everything, being less dependent on fuel. We have many plans in place and some are being implemented right now.

This year’s World TB Day theme, “Yes! We can End TB!”, landed with enthusiasm, yes (!), but also with some real evidence behind it. New vaccines and portable diagnostics are starting to close the gaps in prevention and detection.

• With the existing TB vaccine protecting infants and young children against severe disease only, new candidates advancing through clinical trials are showing promising signs of effectiveness in adolescents and adults. Gavi says these vaccines could save millions of lives and deliver up to $400 billion in economic benefits, and planning is already under way for roughly 120 million doses a year in the first five years of rollout.

• At the same time, WHO has endorsed portable molecular tests that can be used in primary care settings rather than only hospitals and labs, along with tongue swabs, which are easier than traditional sputum tests because they do not require patients to cough up mucus from the lungs. These make it easier and cheaper to diagnose TB closer to where patients live, even as international aid cuts threaten progress. Think Global Health

More than nine million vaccine doses for measles, polio and other preventable diseases were delivered to children in humanitarian settings across the Horn of Africa in 2025. Coordinated outreach and mobile campaigns overcame access barriers, showing large-scale immunisation remains feasible even in the world’s most dangerous places. IRC

A century of (don’t get creeped out) hair samples shows how sharply lead exposure fell after modern environmental rules took hold in the United States. A PNAS study found that current lead concentrations in hair from Utah’s Wasatch Front are almost 100 times lower than before the Environmental Protection Agency was established, documenting a long-run collapse after regulation of leaded petrol and other major sources.

Construction has started on the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway line, which could redraw Central Asia’s economic map. The line has a long history. First proposed in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it finally got financed in December 2025, which means construction is now underway. The project is expected to be completed in 2030, and Kyrgyzstan’s President Japarov says it will transform the country from a “dead-end” to a “transit power.” It will also reduce China’s dependence on Russian transit routes and create a shorter, faster southern corridor for freight between China, Europe and the Middle East, directly eroding Moscow’s influence as the primary Eurasian trade conduit. The Diplomat

Saudi Arabia has restored 10,000 km² of degraded land and planted over 159 million trees under its Green Initiative, shifting from pledges to large-scale ecological delivery. The programme targets desertification, dust storms and biodiversity loss, and marks one of the largest coordinated restoration efforts in the world’s arid regions. Arab News

Australia’s ampurta is making a big comeback. The tiny desert marsupial was once thought close to extinction after farming and the introduction of foxes and rabbits devastated its habitat in the 19th and 20th centuries. But between 2015 and 2021 it expanded its range by 48,000 km² — roughly the size of Denmark — to 238,441 km², thanks in part to its resilience in extreme conditions and also to reduced invasive rabbit numbers.

For conservationists, the lesson is a hopeful one: “In other parts of the world where we’re cutting down forests or destroying wetlands … as long as we can bring that habitat back, we can [help] species to bounce back.” Mongabay

Egypt fossil discovery reshapes origins of modern apes
Fossils from northern Egypt dated to 17–18 million years ago identify a new ape species, Masripithecus moghraensis, likely close to the common ancestor of all living apes. The find shifts the centre of early ape evolution from East to North Africa, suggesting a different migration pathway into Eurasia and exposing gaps in a fossil record long biased toward a single region. Smithsonian

Physicists spot impossible particle called toponium, made of top quarks
Scientists at CERN have found strong evidence for “toponium,” a particle formed when a top quark briefly sticks to its antimatter twin. This wasn’t supposed to happen because top quarks decay almost instantly, but new AI tools revealed rare low-speed pairs that behave like a bound state. The signal reached five-sigma confidence (99.99994%), the gold standard for a physics discovery, filling a key gap in the Standard Model showing how the strong force binds matter. Phys.org

And finally, Artemis II, NASA’s most daring mission in generations, has launched to the Moon, marking the first time since 1972 that humans will have left lower Earth orbit. The ten-day flight will be packed with milestones: two of the crew, NASA’s Christina Koch and Victor Glover, will become the first woman and first person of colour respectively to fly into cislunar space.

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This podcast is brought to you by ⁠Fix The News⁠. Hosted by Angus Hervey and Amy Davoren-Rose, Produced and audio design by Anthony Badolato. ⁠Hear That! ⁠ If you want to get in touch with the team, email amy@fixthenews.com