The World Health Organization has validated El Salvador as having eliminated trachoma, the 32nd country to reach that mark and the first in Central America. Surveys found no active transmission in children and no advanced cases in adults. Trachoma is still endemic in Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala and Peru, and the WHO target is worldwide elimination by 2030.
Serbia's eastern imperial eagle population was down to a single known breeding pair in 2017. This season monitors from the Bird Protection and Study Society of Serbia recorded 29 territorial pairs, 16 of which bred successfully and raised 25 chicks, against 19 pairs and 14 chicks last year. Nest guarding and artificial nesting platforms did most of the work.
Counts of migrating mangrove land crabs at Taijiang National Park in Tainan have risen from more than 5,000 a year to more than 10,000, after roads were closed for the July to September migration and volunteers built small bamboo bridges. Females heavy with eggs cannot swim, and development had blocked their old routes to the shore.
Liu Defang, 71, took off her shoes and went into a river in Suixi county, Anhui, on 13 July after hearing that a man in his thirties was in the water. Holding a lifebuoy passed to her from the bank, she gripped his arm until people onshore could help, then went home without telling her family. Swimming was something she took up after she retired.
Seventy-nine per cent of pupils at Bureau of Indian Education schools graduated within four years in 2025, against just over half in 2015. The 183 federally funded schools serve more than 40,000 pupils. Cleaner record keeping accounts for part of the rise, and so do new trade courses: Chief Leschi Schools went from 53% in 2019 to 87% last year.