Photo: Jessica Lea/DFID via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
In today’s edition: a new fund has been launched with the aim of ending the practice of female genital mutilation, violent crime in New York City hits a historic low between June and August, and Bhutan has become the first country in South-East Asia to officially eliminate human rabies transmitted by dogs.
The aim of Her Horizon Fund is to pool $100m from donors to reach a “tipping point” towards ending female genital mutilation within a generation. Advocates warn that while international recognition of FGM as a human rights violation has grown, and countries such as Burkina Faso, the Gambia and Kenya have criminalised the practice, progress remains fragile.
Source: The Guardian
Between June and August, New York City saw 195 shooting incidents, 249 shooting victims and 66 murders – the fewest in recorded history for each category. Major crime dropped by 6.6% citywide in August, with The Bronx leading the decline.
Source: CBS News
The WHO has validated Bhutan’s elimination of canine-transmitted rabies as a public health problem in the region. Rabies is a viral disease that is almost always fatal once clinical symptoms appear, but deaths can be prevented by vaccinating dogs to curb the disease at its source. Additionally, the use of post exposure prophylaxis stops the virus from reaching the central nervous system after a bite.
Source: WHO
Tim Andrews received a kidney transplanted from a pig in January 2025, sparing him months of needing to go to hospital to have his blood filtered by a dialysis machine. The kidney continued to function until it was removed in October that year. Tim then needed dialysis for 82 days until he had an organ from a donor in January of this year. That organ has been working well.
Source: BBC News
Despite the Trump administration’s vocal opposition to renewable energy, the overwhelming majority of new solar power generation is taking place in conservative US states. Texas and Florida, the two largest Trump-supporting states by population, are in fact leading the way in the country’s adoption of solar.
Source: Grist
The laws, signed by the Democratic California governor on Thursday, bars social media companies from using infinite scroll and autoplay for users under 16. “This is about actually addressing the problem, the scrolling, the algorithms. This is about addressing the substantive issue around the engineering,” Gaving Newsom said at a news conference.
Source: The Guardian
Apple and Google will be forced to block explicit images on children’s smartphones by law in the UK after talks failed to produce a breakthrough, the government has said. The legislation comes a few months after the government announced a social media ban for under-16s.
Source: The Guardian
How much exercise do you need per week? A new study suggests that the type of activity could make an unexpectedly big difference: according to research, just three minutes of intense sprinting reportedly trigger more measurable changes in the body than 90 minutes of moderate cycling.
Source: Science Daily
US farmers are increasingly turning to perennial grains which can withstand extreme weather and drought. Researchers at The Land Institute in Kansas are developing perennial versions of annual crops which can be planted once every couple of seasons, improving soil health and storing carbon.
Source: AP News
Family-run Al-Qarara Seed Bank is striving to help Palestinians gain sovereignty over their food security. The project has two main aims. One is to collect and preserve the seeds of local plants that may thrive better in this landscape; the other is to create a node for seed distribution for farmers who need to save every possible penny.
Source: The Guardian
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Source: Honeyletter
