🌊 Bringing it closer to becoming binding international law, 18 more countries ratified the High Seas Treaty during the U.N. Ocean Conference in France this week — only 11 more need to do so to reach the 60-country threshold.
📜 Five other Ivy League schools and more than 1,200 alumni, including Conan O’Brien, just filed court documents in support of Harvard University in its legal battle against the Trump administration.
Homelessness
Image: PA
Eliminating a 200-year-old law, England and Wales are decriminalizing ‘rough sleeping’
Starting next year, rough sleeping — sleeping outside or in places that aren't designed for people to live in, including cars, doorways, and abandoned buildings — will be decriminalized as England and Wales scrap the Vagrancy Act.
The law was first introduced in 1824 to deal with rising homelessness. Calling it “cruel and outdated,” the government’s new plan is to target crimes like organized begging by gangs and trespassing.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said the move would end “nearly two centuries of injustice towards some of the most vulnerable in society.”
Why is this good news? Nobody should be deemed a criminal for sleeping on the street. The only role the government should play in addressing homelessness is improving systems to ensure everyone who wants to be housed can access it.
The Philadelphia Eagles’ owner donated $50 million to support a new autism research initiative.The Lurie Autism Institute will work to improve understanding of the genetics and other processes underlying autism, study how behaviors on the spectrum grow and evolve across the lifespan, use AI to analyze data to identify new treatment targets and existing drugs that could be repurposed for autism, and more.
Jamaica had its lowest poverty rate on record in 2023
In 2023, Jamaica’s poverty rate fell to a record low of 8.2%, the lowest level since at least 1989, when the data started being recorded. That’s a 50.8% decrease from 2021’s 16.7% poverty rate.
A strong post-pandemic economic rebound is credited with the turnaround, due to factors like increased employment, an 85.7% rise in the national minimum wage, stronger social programs, and more.
Notably, there was also a reduction in “food poverty,” also called extreme poverty, which fell to 2.8% in 2023, down from 5.8% in 2021. Food poverty “refers to the inability of a household to afford the minimum daily caloric intake required for good health.”
I try to find hotels or resorts that practice sustainability in their hospitality services, so I’m bumping that one in Bali to the top of my travel wish list!
Have you visited anywhere that’s had a thoughtful initiative like that?
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