Good News
Côte d'Ivoire has become the second African country to successfully eliminate sleeping sickness. The public health milestone comes after 20 years of targeted screening and treatment programs in remote rural communities. Annual cases have decreased by more than 90% since the 1990s and the country will now shift focus to maintenance and keeping the disease out. WHO
France has taken a major step forward in protecting children against sexual abuse by setting the minimum age of sexual consent at 15. The new legislation follows years of campaigning by abuse survivors to bring France’s consent laws in line with most other western countries. Sex with minors under 15 will now be punishable by up to 20 years in prison. France24
A year after passing its historic law to decriminalize abortion, New Zealand has passed legislation for paid bereavement for miscarriage. The new bill gives women and their partners time to come to terms with their loss without having to tap into sick leave and will also apply to parents planning to have a child through adoption or surrogacy. ABC
Low-level, non-violent crimes will no longer be prosecuted in Baltimore. The city temporarily suspended prosecution of drug possession, prostitution and misdemeanours to limit the spread of COVID-19 in jail, but after recording a 36% drop in property crimes, a 20% decline in violent crimes and a 39% decrease in the number of people entering the criminal justice system, officials have decided to make the measures permanent. NBC
New York has become the 15th US state to legalize recreational marijuana. The state will immediately start expunging the criminal records of individuals with past marijuana-related convictions, and law enforcement in the state won’t be able to arrest or prosecute individuals for possession of marijuana up to three ounces. NBC
Canada is on track to halve domestic poverty by 2030. Thanks to strong public policy, rates of both poverty and income inequality have fallen consistently since 2015, and the number of children below the poverty line has plummeted from 1.1 million to 680,000. Although the pandemic caused major economic disruption, government interventions have helped continue the downward trend. The Tyee
The Biden Administration has designated a vast swathe of ocean between Long Island and the New Jersey coast as an offshore wind energy zone, in a move that will create over 6,000 permanent jobs. The government has set a target to create 30 GW of wind turbines along both coasts, capable of powering enough electricity for 10 million American homes for a year. NPR
Massachusetts has passed one of America’s most ambitious climate bills, outlining a clear path to net-zero by 2050. The Bay State will add gigawatts of offshore wind power, require cities and towns to adopt a net-zero building code, and set targets for electric vehicles, charging stations, and energy storage. The new law also codifies environmental justice policy, which to this point has been limited to executive orders and other regulatory decisions. Ars Technica
The endangered Californian condor is returning to its home skies after nearly a century thanks to the efforts of the Yurok Tribe. After a decade of petitioning, the tribe has commenced building an approved captive breeding facility, with the first condors expected to arrive later this year. It follows the success of reintroduction programs in south and central California that have seen the free flying population increase from 22 to over 300 in the past 40 years. Guardian
In a quiet victory for animal welfare, 70 million hens have been raised cage-free in America over the past six years, as the use of battery cages rapidly declines. For over 15 years advocates have tirelessly campaigned against the inhumane practice, successfully shifting legislation and consumer trends. Progress continues, with Utah recently becoming the eighth state to ban battery cages. Vox
Thanks to progressive policies over the past 24 years, California has clocked up a 78% reduction in diesel particulate pollution, the toxic black stuff from car exhausts. Cleaner air has benefited public health, with 82% fewer deaths from heart and lung disease. Amazing progress, especially considering that California has more cars than any other state as well as the USA's two largest ports. Gizmodo
The coronavirus pandemic has been great for whales. Not only did it help end commercial hunting, it also reduced underwater noise pollution, leaving whales free to communicate with one another and locate food without interruption. Ocean scientists are racing to collect data and hope this rare silence gives whales a chance to return to their natural behaviours and have more complex conversations. NBC
Indistinguishable from magic
Speaking of whales, something's going on with the humpbacks. Huge groups are congregating off the coast of South Africa, and nobody knows why. Scientists have been coming across a lot of these 'super-pods' in the last five years, and the consensus so far seems to be: this is pretty freakin’ weird. Perhaps they're sending us one final message? "So long, and thanks for all the krill." Popular Science
Another extraordinary thing from the animal kingdom: reindeer cyclones. When a herd is threatened, it runs in spirals, with the does and fawns in the middle, making it nearly impossible for a hunter to target a single animal. The ghost of Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis must be feeling smug; apparently the reindeer almost always run in a counterclockwise direction. Live Science
Loins are quivering over at the Large Hadron Collider, with news about an unusual signal that may herald a new kind of physics. The secret lies in an elusive, unstable particle called a B meson, which isn’t degrading according to plan. The chances of this being a fluke are 1 in 1,000. You know physicists are getting excited when they say things like "It’s an intriguing hint." Guardian
Fans of contact sports such as NFL, AFL (and the king of contact sports, rugby union) will know concussion is very topical problem right now. Good news then, from scientists in Birmingham, who've used biomarkers in the saliva of elite rugby players to diagnose concussion with an accuracy rate of 94%. "We've never really seen anything so exciting for mild traumatic brain injury." Freethink
Geneticists in Toronto have made a big CRISPR breakthrough, correcting something called a duplication mutation, which occurs when a section of DNA appears twice, in a live animal for the first time. Around 10% of human genetic disorders are caused by these kinds of mutations, so this is a big step towards developing life-changing treatments for numerous rare diseases. CTV
Repeat after us: robots don't replace jobs, they replace tasks within jobs. Robots don't replace jobs, they replace tasks within jobs. Robots don't replace... but what happens if your job consists mostly of one task? Deep inside a gleaming warehouse, Amazon's milky-blooded w̶a̶r̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶r̶o̶i̶d̶s̶ management team are rubbing their union-busting hands in glee right now. Youtube
Information superhighway
It's rare for us to recommend a podcast, but once in a blue moon we come across something we're compelled to share. This time, it's an interview with Ted Chiang, one of the greatest science fiction writers alive. Just like his prose, every word is carefully chosen, and it makes for an incredible hour of conversation. Days later, we're still thinking about some of these ideas. NYT
The arrival of any new media in human history is usually presented as a democratizing and empowering force. In this thoughtful essay, LM Sacasas makes the opposite case, arguing that when everyone has a microphone, we lose 'the silence of the commons.' Real, human silence, he says, can only take shape when we are in the presence of another. Amen. The Convivial Society
For years, a gang of elusive, acrobatic thieves from Romania pulled off a string of daring warehouse heists in London, stealing hundreds of the world's rarest books. Eventually, detectives from Scotland Yard, Romania, Germany, and Italy nabbed the so-called Mission: Impossible gang. This is the very entertaining story of how it all went down. Vanity Fair
Psychedelic-assisted therapy has officially arrived in the UK, and Alexandra Jones has the goods. "We designed the therapy to go with the ketamine effects. We wanted something evidence based, a therapy that has been shown to help people avoid alcoholic relapse. But also something that would work with what we know about the brain in the ketamine state.” Guardian
A really useful frame for thinking about China, from human rights abuses in Xianjing to sword-rattling over Taiwan. It's not a new superpower, but rather a 20th century great power that's fallen into the 21st century. Looked at this way, China’s jingoism is like something from another time — specifically, Europe before World War 1 and Japan before World War 2. Noahpinion
This is really beautiful. 16-year-old Emma Stevens, from the Eskasoni First Nation in Nova Scotia, Canada, singing The Beatles’ “Blackbird” in her native language Mi’kmaq. How often do you get to hear First Nations' languages sung out loud?
Humankind
Meet Doramise Moreau, a 60 year old grandmother and part-time janitor in Miami, who has single-handedly cooked a thousand meals every week since the beginning of the pandemic to help people in her local community who have struggled to put food on the table.
Doramise, a widow, lives with her children, nephew and three grandchildren and cooks the huge volume of food in the tiny kitchen of her home that was built by Habitat for Humanity. Despite her arduous work as a janitor, every Thursday night Doramise borrows a truck from her local church to buy groceries and on Fridays catches the bus home from work to cook up trays of chicken, turkey, beans and yellow rice, often working into the early hours of Saturday morning when she delivers the food to the church.
Doramise’s passion for feeding people started young. Growing up in a small village in Haiti, she would often take food from her parents’ pantry to give to someone who needed it and despite her mothers’ constant scolding, was undeterred. “I told her, ‘You can whup me today, you can whup me tomorrow, but I’m going to continue to do it.’”
Decades later Doramise is still feeding her village, sending monthly food pallets back to her family and neighbours, despite her modest salary. And it’s not just the hungry that she cares for. Every morning before work, Doramise stops by her church to prepare a special Haitian hot tea and other remedies to help the church’s staff, police and local community leaders keep their immune system strong during the pandemic.
Doramise attributes her inexhaustible drive to her faith. “If you give from your heart and never think about yourself, God will provide for you every day. The refrigerator will never be without food.” AP
We're all done and dusted here, thanks for reading! Have you got your vaccine yet? Let us know, we'd love to hear about it.
(no baby yet)
Much love,
FC HQ
