NewsFix

Welcome back to NewsFix – your quick pit-stop for what’s going right in the world. I’m Anthony Badolato, and here are our top stories this week.

What happens when some of the world’s most remote islands finally get online?

A game-changing pancreatic cancer treatment gets the official green light

Why India is sending three million people door-to-door to do some counting

The salmon comeback that’s beating expectations

And the discovery of oxygen where no one expected to find it

SFX: OLD DIAL-UP MODEM

Remember when this was a thing?

Feels like a lifetime ago, right?

For most of us, high-speed internet has become such a big part of everyday life, the only time we notice it is when something goes wrong. Some of the world’s most remote communities though, are still on the other side of the digital divide.

But that’s changing … fast.

Take the Federated States of Micronesia: more than 600 islands scattered across nearly three million square kilometres of the Pacific. A decade ago, just 2% of the population was using the internet. Today, that figure is nearly 40%, thanks to a huge rollout of undersea cables, satellite connections and new digital infrastructure.

Faster internet doesn't just mean better Zoom calls. Mah-lie Tarb-willin is an Assistant Secretary in the Marshall Islands’ Ministry of Finance, another Pacific nation going through its own digital transformation.

Malie Grab here. IN POINT- 2:13 mins
“It’s not just about cables and computers. It’s about equity, empowerment and dignity. This digital transformation and improved service is about the people.”

And that's the point. Faster internet can mean getting medical scans to a specialist overseas in hours instead of days. It means opening a bank account or accessing government services without travelling by boat to a state capital. And for local businesses, it means suddenly being able to reach customers and suppliers around the world.

High-speed internet isn't really about speed. It's about what suddenly becomes possible once you're connected.

Speaking of possibilities, there are a few other stories this week that could change what happens next - starting with one of the deadliest forms of cancer.

A few months ago we told you about a new miracle pill for pancreatic cancer, and now comes the news that it just received full FDA approval. In trials, patients taking daraxonrasib survived roughly twice as long, with some living for years. The results were so strong that the approval process, that normally takes months, was completed in weeks.

Next up, India is conducting its first census in 15 years, with more than three million people going door-to-door. I know that sounds like boring paperwork until you realise what it could unlock. The country’s affirmative-action quotas are still based on caste figures from 1931, and the new data will also finally trigger a law reserving a third of lower-house seats for women.

And dipping our toe back into a story we’ve been following very closely for years…

Two years after four dams were removed from California’s Klamath River, the salmon comeback is exceeding expectations. Chinook have now recolonised 88% of their historic range, and more than 13,000 fish passed the site of the old Iron Gate Dam last year, almost double the number from the year before.

There’s plenty more good news around the world - time for this week’s Sparks of Progress.

Kicking off with a birth announcement: Kazakhstan has welcomed its first wild Przewalski’s horse foal in two centuries, just two years after the species was reintroduced.

Bullfighting is on its last legs in Mexico, with Tijuana joining Mexico City and six states that have banned the practice.

China’s transport emissions fell 16% last quarter, as oil consumption dropped 9% amid the country’s rapid shift to electric vehicles.

Gah-bon has locked in $200 million for conservation to expand parks, tackle poaching and support local communities.

And surgeons in London have removed a brain tumour using AI to map nerves and blood vessels in real time, helping them navigate around critical structures by the millimetre.

And finally, scientists have found oxygen in a place where, quite frankly, there shouldn’t be any.
Nearly two miles underground in a South African mine, researchers tapped into water that’s been sealed away from the surface for 1.2 billion years … and found oxygen.

That’s weird because we’ve long associated oxygen with sunlight and photosynthesis. But if oxygen can be produced in complete darkness, it raises a pretty wild possibility: could oxygen-breathing life survive deep underground … or even on other planets?

Dark oxygen-breathing aliens? Sci-fi writers, start your engines.

Ok, there’s really nowhere else to go after a story like that … so I’m taking that as my cue to leave. Make sure you check out the full download of good news at fixthenews.com.

I'm Anthony Badolato ... and that's your News Fixed.