Photo: Casey Horner/Unsplash (CC0)
In today’s edition, we’re looking at green energy outpacing coal as the world’s leading source of power, the big drop in the number cigarette smokers over the past 15 years, and Denmark’s mission to improve adolescent mental health by banning social media for under-15s.
In a historic first, renewable energy outperformed coal as the world’s leading source of electricity in the first six months of 2025. Although electricity demand is growing around the world, the growth in wind and solar was so strong that it met 100% of the extra demand.
Source: BBC News
The Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, says the country will ban social media for under-15s, as she accused mobile phones and social networks of “stealing our children’s childhood”. There will, however, be an option for parents to give permission to their children to use social media from the age of 13.
Source: The Guardian
The newly-published report found more women were quitting tobacco than men, with prevalence of tobacco use among women dropping from 11% in 2010 to 6.6% in 2024. Among men, the decrease was from 41.4% in 2010 to 32.5% in 2024.
Source: RNZ
Using nanotechnology, scientists across a variety of different universities and research partnerships were able to restore the normal function of the brain’s vasculature: essentially, repairing the network of blood vessels that supplies it with oxygen and nutrients.
Source: Newsweek
The city voted through the initiative in a recent referendum, which calls for the cost of a second-class annual subscription for public transport in the city centre to cost 365 francs per year for adults, and 185 francs for children and young people.
Source: I Am Expat
A growing number of NFL stadiums across the US are making big strides in lowering their carbon footprints by installing solar panels and creating composting and recycling programmes. Powering jumbotrons, bright lights and air conditioning requires large amounts of energy, which takes toll on the environment.
Source: AP News
Last week, the town of Toyoake in central Japan introduced a measure limiting smartphone use among its 69,000 residents to two hours a day, in what officials say was an attempt to tackle evidence of online addiction and sleep deprivation. The ordinance, however, does not carry penalties for those who ignore it.
Source: The Guardian
In northwestern Nigeria, women have long been excluded from land inheritance in favour of their male counterparts. Now, a growing number of women are forming cooperatives, pooling savings, and buying farmland under their own names.
Source: Social Voices
Anthony Ray Hinton spent over 28 years in a windowless, 5 by 7ft cell on death row after being convicted of a series of murders he did not commit. In the ten years since his release, he’s been campaigning for the abolition of the death penalty and speaking out against what he sees as Alabama’s racist judicial system.
Source: Positive News
Bluemind Foundation, an NGO working across Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Togo, has plugged into the hairdresser-client relationship through its Heal by Hair initiative. More than 400 hairdressers have been trained in the last two years to act as therapeutic first responders or “mental health ambassadors”, reaching more than 100,000 women.
Source: The Guardian
