Doomslayer: Progress Roundup
Argentine labor reform, progress against tropical diseases, Yangtze recovery, and more.
Economics & Development
Argentina’s Senate has approved a major labor reform bill that loosens rules around hiring and firing and curbs union power. The bill still has to pass through the lower house, but the Senate—where President Milei’s party, La Libertad Avanza, holds a smaller share of seats—was the larger hurdle. As policy analyst Marcos Falcone recently discussed on our podcast, labor reform is a crucial step toward fixing the Argentine economy:
Argentina also has a very high degree of informality in its labor market because it’s very expensive to hire employees legally, and it can be even more expensive to let them go because of litigation. Businesses, particularly small and medium enterprises, are constantly trying to avoid litigation because they know, due to the way that the judicial system is set up, if they face a lawsuit by a former employee, they’re going to lose. This needs to stop, and the Milei administration knows this and is going to push for labor reform.
Milei Midterms: An Update on Argentina
Argentina’s recent midterm elections delivered a clear verdict: voters want President Javier Milei’s reforms to continue. Defying predictions of public backlash and political collapse, Milei’s party, La Libertad Avanza, won far more support than expected and greatly strengthened its hand in Congress.
Energy & Environment
US forests are absorbing historically high amounts of carbon. According to a recently published study, thanks to higher CO₂ levels, warmer temperatures, shifting rainfall, expanding forests, and maturing trees, US forests have stored more carbon over the past two decades than during any comparable period in the last century.
China’s 2021 Yangtze fishing ban didn’t just benefit the porpoise: the whole river is recovering. A new study finds that Yangtze fish biomass more than doubled two years after the ban, with species diversity rising by 13 percent.
The greater Bermuda snail, once thought to be extinct, is now thriving. After a few hundred were discovered in Bermuda’s capital city—likely the last of their species—conservationists bred and released 100,000 of them across the island, establishing six stable populations.
Health & Demographics
Thanks to successful elimination efforts, fewer people need preventive treatment for neglected tropical diseases. According to the World Health Organization, around 1.4 billion people required large-scale distribution of preventive medicines in 2024, 92 million fewer than in 2023.
The number of organ transplants in the US has increased nearly every year since 2013 (2020 was the exception), reaching a record 49,064 in 2025.
In a large trial in Singapore, releasing male mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia bacteria—which prevents certain viruses from replicating and mosquito eggs from hatching—reduced dengue infections by roughly 70 percent.
Science & Technology
Southwest Airlines plans to outfit more than 300 aircraft with Starlink by the end of the year, bringing faster and more reliable connection to passengers.
Paul Erdős, a prolific 20th-century mathematician, left behind over 1,000 open math problems. Since October, researchers have used AI models to find solutions for about 100 of them—mostly by tracking down and combining overlooked proofs, but in some cases by generating novel solutions.
Tolerance & Culture
Same sex couples in the Philippines can now share ownership of property.
Violence & Coercion
There were 34,086 homicides in Brazil in 2025, down from 38,374 in 2024—the fifth consecutive annual drop.
In the 12 months before September 2025, England and Wales suffered just under 500 homicides, the lowest number since 1977. Property crime is also way down from its 1990s peak.
