“For decades, Sweden was shorthand for the brand of high-tax, high-spend government that managed people’s lives from cradle to grave through state-run hospitals, schools and care homes.

No longer. With little fanfare, this Nordic country of 11 million has embraced capitalism. 

Today, nearly half of primary healthcare clinics are privately owned, many by private-equity firms. One in three public high schools is privately run, up from 20% in 2011. School operators are listed on the stock exchange.

Sweden’s experience has lessons—good and bad—for other rich countries, including the U.S., where New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is looking to emulate parts of the state-centric model such as universal child care and city-run stores.

The capitalist makeover has allowed Sweden to do what few industrialized countries have managed in recent years: shrink the size of the state. That has enabled the government to sharply lower taxes and, economists say, sparked a surge in entrepreneurship and economic growth.

Its total public social spending bill—which includes healthcare, education and all welfare payments—has fallen to 24% of gross domestic product, similar to the U.S. and well below the over 30% for nations like France and Italy.

Sweden’s economy is expected to grow by around 2% a year through 2030, roughly the same pace as the U.S. and double the growth rates of France and Germany, according to an April forecast by the International Monetary Fund.”

From Wall Street Journal.

“The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted on Thursday [4/30/26] to modernize its satellite spectrum-sharing rules, which could increase capacity for space-based broadband services by up to sevenfold…

The recent announcement comes as a revamp of the Equivalent Power Flux Density (EPFD) framework, developed in the late 1990s. The original framework was designed to prevent radio signal interference caused by satellites in low-Earth orbit, or non-geostationary orbit (NGSO), from affecting higher-orbiting geostationary satellites (GSO). As a result, it limited the amount of energy transmitted by satellites in low-Earth orbit to ground-based equipment, thereby slowing broadband speeds for consumers.”

From Gizmodo.

“The first malaria treatment for babies has been approved by the World Health Organization, opening the door to widespread use around the globe.

In parts of Africa, up to 18% of children under six months will be infected with malaria, but there has historically been no safe treatment for the smallest of them. There were 610,000 deaths from malaria in 2024, about three quarters of which were under-fives in Africa…

Medical leaders hope that Coartem Baby, which can be used to treat infants as small as 2kg (4.4lb), will fill the treatment gap. The drug comes as sweet cherry-flavoured tablets that can be dissolved into liquids, including breast milk…

Coartem Baby now has WHO prequalification, which indicates it meets international standards of quality, safety and efficacy, and will enable public-sector procurement for many countries with high rates of malaria, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.”

From The Guardian.

“The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has proposed a sweeping new licensing framework designed to push microreactors out of the lab and onto the grid at unprecedented speed. The proposed rule, called Part 57, is paired with a broader agency overhaul that earlier this year created the Office of Advanced Reactors (OAR), headed by longtime NRC official Jeremy S. Bowen. Together, the two moves represent the most significant shift in U.S. nuclear regulation in a generation—a direct response to White House Executive Order 14300 (Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) and the bipartisan Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act.

Announced April 24, the proposed Part 57 rule creates a streamlined, risk-informed pathway for licensing microreactors and other reactors with comparable risk profiles. The NRC and industry estimate it will save between $3.76 billion and $11.84 billion, depending on discount rate, largely by ‘reducing exemption requests and streamlining reviews.’ Construction permit and operating license timelines could shrink to six months to a year.”

From POWER magazine.