Doomslayer: Progress Roundup

A check on US tariffs, reasons to trust crime statistics, beaver acceleration in the UK, and more.

Economics & Development

• The United States Supreme Court has ruled that President Trump lacked the authority to impose widespread tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The ruling does not end President Trump’s broader tariff policy or invalidate tariffs created under other statutes, but it does strip the executive of one mechanism for unilaterally imposing sweeping trade barriers.

• China has promised to eliminate tariffs on imports from every African country except Eswatini, which maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

Energy & Environment

Conservation and biodiversity:

• Elephant seals are no longer considered “near threatened” in South Africa after their population reached 5,500 in 2023, up from 3,000 in 2016.

• After being driven to the brink of extinction in Serbia in the late 20th century, the eastern imperial eagle—which graces the national coat of arms—has been reestablished in the country, with 19 breeding pairs recorded in 2025.

• The cheetah is back in India, and its population is growing. In 2022, conservationists began reintroducing the species using animals from Namibia and South Africa. As of this week, the wild population has risen to 38.

• In 2009, the UK began officially reintroducing beavers, which were extirpated in the 16th century, but only within closely monitored areas. Last year, those restrictions were lifted in England, and this year, there are plans to release around 100 beavers into the wild.

• Since August, according to official satellite data, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has fallen to its lowest level since 2014. If the trend continues, 2026 might see the lowest level of Amazonian deforestation since 1988, when monitoring began.

• According to a recent government report, forest and tree cover in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh expanded by roughly 338,000 acres (about 528 square miles) between 2017 and 2023.

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Energy production

• Fervo, a geothermal energy company, has drilled a well with a temperature above 555 degrees Fahrenheit, its hottest well yet. The hotter the well, the more electricity each borehole can produce, boosting efficiency and helping move US geothermal closer to commercial viability.

• US companies are trying to repurpose jet engines into natural gas turbines to power data centers. According to a Jefferies analyst, about 1,600 commercial jet engines are retired each year, and if a third were converted, they could yield roughly 13 gigawatts of generating capacity.

Health & Demographics

• Libya has eliminated trachoma, a bacterial eye infection, as a public health problem, and Nepal is on the verge of eliminating Kala-Azar, a highly deadly parasitic disease.

• Measles is coming back under control in Europe and Central Asia. Cases fell 75 percent last year, dropping from 127,000 in 2024 to 34,000 in 2025.

• Canada is making progress against cancer. According to a recent government report, the five-year survival rate has grown from 55 percent in the early 1990s to around 64 percent today.

• The FDA commissioner Marty Makary recently announced plans to make one major study, rather than two, the agency’s new default requirement for approving new drugs. He argued that advances in biomedical science make duplicate trials less necessary, and that the change should speed up approvals and encourage more drug development. Makary has also promised to allow more drugs to be sold without a prescription.

Science & Technology

• Waymo recently disclosed that its fleet of 3,000 robotaxis requires just 70 remote operators on duty at any given time, a small ratio that suggests the vehicles rarely need human assistance.

Violence & Coercion

• The death penalty is losing ground in Southeast Asia. While only Cambodia, the Philippines, and Timor-Leste have fully abolished it, several other countries—including Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam—have sharply reduced executions or narrowed their use.

• The blogger Scott Alexander has assembled some arguments for why we should take the long term decline in US crime rates seriously:

  • The National Crime Victimization Survey, which asks people directly whether they have been victims of crime and operates independently of police reports, shows a broadly similar long-run decline to other crime measures.

  • Homicide and motor-vehicle theft, which are consistently reported and reliably measured, have dropped at similar rates to other crimes.

  • Improved hospital trauma care likely doesn’t explain the long-run drop in murder; research suggests that although medical treatment has improved, gunshot injuries have grown more severe over time, leaving overall lethality per violent act roughly stable.

  Record Low Crime Rates Are Real, Not Just Reporting Bias Or Improved Medical Care

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