Photo: World Bank/flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
In today’s edition, Guinea worm takes a step towards becoming only the second disease ever wiped out, Japan celebrates a 70% drop in stomach cancer, and India’s chess clubs are turning the “game of kings” into a route out of poverty.
With 10 human cases reported worldwide in 2025, Guinea worm is close to being the second disease eradicated in history, following smallpox. For a disease to be declared eradicated, every country in the world must be certified free of human and animal infections, even in those where transmission has never been known to occur.
Source: Euronews
In the 1980s, stomach cancer was the type of cancer somebody in Japan was most likely to die from. This is no longer the case: improvements in prevention, detection, and treatment have all contributed to a 70% decrease in stomach cancer death rates.
Source: Our World In Data
Today, more than 90% of Indonesians have access to clean cooking fuels, reducing household exposure to harmful smoke. A national programme launched in 2007 replaced kerosene with liquefied petroleum gas: the switch has cut particulate pollution and resulted in countrywide health benefits, including a steep decline in deaths linked to indoor air pollution.
Source: Our World In Data
As of Wednesday, more than eight years have passed without a single nuclear test, setting a new global record. This is the longest stretch without a nuclear detonation since the dawn of the nuclear age, which began with the Trinity test in New Mexico on July 16th, 1945, ahead of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki near the end of World War II.
Source: CNN
Together, solar generation grew 27.5% year over year and accounted for 7.2% of total US electricity production during the month, up from 5.9% a year earlier. This promising uptick in green energy comes in spite of extensive cuts carried out by the Trump administration.
Source: Electrek
Spain has announced plans to become the latest European country to pursue stricter rules for young users online. The proposed ban, which still requires parliamentary approval, is part of a broader package of reforms that would also hold company executives personally accountable for illegal or harmful content hosted on their platforms.
Source: BBC News
Chanea Bond teaches at Southwest High School in the Fort Worth Independent School District, which serves a largely low-income student population. She says moving her American literature and composition classes almost entirely offline has been the most effective way she’s found to keep generative AI out of her classroom.
Source: NPR
In India, chess is becoming more than a competitive sport or elite pursuit that promises prize money and social media fame. Across the country, local clubs and districts are expanding access to the game, using it as a tool for education and a pathway out of poverty for the communities they serve.
Source: Reasons To Be Cheerful
Italy and its art-filled cities have no shortage of tourists, but they haven’t always been overly welcoming to visitors with disabilities. Now, Italy has plans to make its vast artistic heritage more accessible to people who are blind or have low vision using braille signs, QR-coded audio guides, tactile models and bas-relief replicas of artifacts.
Source: AP News
In the high Peruvian Andes, wildcats were once hunted as threats to livestock and survival. That mindset is now changing: thanks to women-led conservation efforts that mix camera traps, traditional weaving, and community organising, human neighbours are learning to coexist with wildlife.
Source: Mongabay
