OGN Monday

Editor OGN Daily
5 minutes ago
4 min read

Ensuring September gets off to an upbeat start with today's global collection of positive news stories.

Changing Fashion

A new retrospective shows how the lauded photographer David Bailey shook up fashion imagery in the 1960s before reinventing the nude a decade later. The exhibition celebrates the transformational impact of his photography in the 60s and 70s. Bailey's studio was the perfect expression of his restless intelligence. Alongside the usual photographic clutter, you’ll find tribal masks, oriental boxes and stuffed animals - including several parrots. Bailey joined Vogue in 1960 and his ascent was meteoric, publishing his first cover in 1961. He quickly established himself as the lead photographer at Vogue, though he insists he has never once set out to take a Vogue photograph. His celebrated Box of Pin-Ups, featuring 36 members of London’s glitterati, forms the centrepiece of the exhibition. David Bailey’s Changing Fashion is at The MOP Foundation, A Coruña, Spain, until 14 September.

Nearing Parity

Pew Research shows that women aged 25 - 34, a mix of Gen Z and millennials, are paid 95 cents for every dollar men are, making them the most equally compensated generation in American history, even as Gen Z-ers seek out jobs with good work-life balance.

World-first Procedure

In a big leap for robotic surgery, doctors in Australia have pulled off a world-first procedure by pairing two advanced robotic systems to remove a throat tumour while preserving the patient’s ability to speak and swallow. The landmark surgery at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney marks a breakthrough in precision medicine, showing how integrating robotics can achieve outcomes once thought impossible. Combining the da Vinci robot with the Symani robotic surgery system, surgeons at Australia’s largest not-for-profit health provider successfully operated on a 27-year-old man with a sarcoma in his throat, just above his voice box.

"Something Extraordinary"

A new report shows just how impactful a raft of groundbreaking welfare policies by former Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador have been. Obrador’s policies, which included a tripling of the minimum wage, made a measurable impact on the lives of millions of everyday Mexicans. When Obrador took office in 2018, there were nearly 52 million people living below the poverty line. Six years later, that number had dropped by 13.4 million, an unparalleled reduction of nearly 26 percent. "There has never been a single six-year term in which poverty has been reduced or decreased so significantly,” said Viri Ríos, a public policy expert and director of Mexico Decoded. “This is a watershed moment for the Mexican economy.” Obrador’s successor and Mexico's first female president Claudia Sheinbaum said: “It’s something extraordinary, historic, the reduction of poverty.”

Students competing in NASA's Human Exploration Rover Challenge — Credit: NASA

STEM Students Wanted

Do you know a group of talented STEM students? You may want to clue them in to this NASA contest. Last week, the has announced it’s now accepting proposals for the 2026 Human Exploration Rover Challenge: a competition in which student teams design, build, and test rovers that could, in theory, go to the moon and Mars. More than 500 students on 75 teams competed in last year’s event and many former participants of the annual contest, which began in 1994, now work at NASA or in the aerospace industry. “This challenge will help students see themselves in the mission and give them the hands-on experience needed to advance technology and become the workforce of tomorrow,” activity lead Vemitra Alexander said in a news release. Learn how to apply before 15 Sept.

Fastest EV

Yangwang, a sub-brand of the Chinese car company BYD, has just set a new EV speed record of 293.54 mph. The incredible speed was achieved by a new Track Edition variant of the Yangwang U9 supercar. This also puts the U9 some way ahead of Europe's Rimac Nevera R, which recently set a whole bunch of EV performance records and has a top speed of 268 mph.

Arthur Emonson holding an ancient tooth — Credit: National Trust / Lydia Allt

Boy's Discovery

A seven-year-old boy found what could be Britain’s southernmost prehistoric burial site while on holiday. Arthur Emonson uncovered human teeth when he volunteered on a dig at Lizard Point, Cornwall, earlier this month. Tests have now found that the teeth could be up to 2,500 years old, which if confirmed would make it the most southerly prehistoric burial location ever found on mainland Britain. “I looked down and found the teeth,” Arthur said. “I thought they were from an animal or something. It’s quite surprising, actually.”

"Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done." W.E.B. Du Bois

On This Day

Cover of 'Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral' by Phillis Wheatley

1 September 1773: Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral by American slave Phillis Wheatley published in the UK, becoming the first known book of poetry published by a Black woman. It would later help drive the abolitionist cause, as it testified to the intelligence and creativity that many Americans then believed peoples of African descent to lack.