MERIDIAN / EDITORIAL STANDARD v1.0 / 25 OCTOBER 2026
What belongs in the registry?
Major consequences. Achieved milestones. Evidence that supports both.
The registry is a reviewed selection across six lenses. A story must pass every evidence gate below and at least one concrete domain threshold. Significance must be 4 or 5 with an explanation. These are Meridian editorial choices, not official risk or scientific severity standards.
142Candidates reviewed
99Registry entries
61New entries
22Prior entries withdrawn
Popularity is not an inclusion criterion. Funding rounds, routine product announcements, ordinary incident updates, unsupported first-ever claims and projected future benefits do not qualify.
Six mandatory gates
A discrete event, decision, achieved milestone or clearly bounded measured period, dated on or before 2026-10-25. Prioritise 2025 and 2026. Historical conflict records must be 2022 or later; other historical records 2012 or later to match supported archive.
Primary evidence supports the actual central claim, date and scale. An authoritative decision/measurement (WHO certification, regulator/court order, official mission result, official disaster assessment) may stand as the determining source. Corporate/institutional promotional claims of novelty, benefit or deployment require independent official/peer-reviewed corroboration of the key eligibility claim. Independent first-party admissions by different affected organisations can corroborate non-promotional security consequences; retain the exact accounts/people/credential metric. Two republications of the same press release do not count as independent evidence.
At least one domain threshold below is actually met. Explain what makes this major; fame, headline volume, virality, funding, expected future benefits and a company calling something a breakthrough are insufficient.
One underlying episode per record. Merge routine updates/duplicate reports. A separate entry needs a distinct major onset, intervention, milestone or outcome, with a distinct eventKey and a note relating it to any parent episode.
Geography and numbers retain source scope and dates. No headquarters-as-impact coordinates, invented casualty totals, prospective targets as achieved outcomes, currency conversion without sourced basis, or modelled estimates represented as observed loss.
Explained within-domain editorial significance must be 4 or 5 for inclusion. This is an additional editorial check, never a substitute for a concrete domain threshold. Do not inflate old scores to save weak records.
AI incidents
A1 · Serious physical consequence and authoritative response
Confirmed fatality or serious physical injury materially attributable to deployed AI/automation, with authoritative investigation, significant deployment suspension or comparable official response.
A2 · Systemic rights/privacy failure or substantive national remedy
Documented systemic privacy/rights failure affecting at least 100,000 people/accounts, or a national/multi-country regulator/court action establishing a substantive AI-related precedent or remedy. A small fine alone is insufficient.
A3 · Material realised financial consequence
Confirmed realised loss of at leastUS$10m where reported inUSD, or a source-substantiated comparably material systemic financial event. Do not count demands, attempted or secured transfers as losses. Retain other source currencies without invented conversion.
A4 · Cross-organisation compromise or exceptional control failure
Confirmed cross-organisation production compromise, critical-infrastructure impact, or a demonstrated first-of-kind autonomous containment/control failure with independently corroborated consequences. Ordinary prompt-injection demonstrations/benchmarks do not qualify.
Conflict & security
C1 · Major conflict onset, end or escalation
Major war onset/end, direct interstate attack or substantively new theatre/escalation, supported by authoritative reporting.
C2 · Substantive peace or ceasefire milestone
A major ceasefire/peace agreement entering into effect or being officially concluded; distinguish signing from implementation and subsequent breakdown.
C3 · Major strategic or humanitarian shift
A major strategic or humanitarian shift with at least 100,000 displaced/evacuated or comparable UN-documented national/regional consequence. No routine battlefield claims or daily casualty headlines.
Weather & nature
N1 · Large documented human consequences
A documented disaster with at least 100 deaths or100,000 displaced/evacuated/affected people, retaining the exact source metric (affected is not displaced).
N2 · Major documented disaster damage
At leastUS$1bn documented physical/economic damage in an authoritative assessment, or a source-substantiated comparable national-scale disaster. Keep insured loss, economic loss and damage distinct.
N3 · Exceptional officially established environmental record
An officially established exceptional global/continental/national climate or geophysical record with substantial societal/scientific consequence. Instrumentally confirmed earthquakes of Mw>=8.5 qualify when an official international tsunami/evacuation response is documented. Evacuation orders remain orders, not a count of actual evacuees. Local temperature records and ordinary forecasts do not qualify.
Space & orbit
S1 · Major mission first or scientific milestone
A substantiated first/major scientific milestone for a national/international mission (e.g. first successful destination landing, human return after decades, unprecedented observation), or a major completed mission with documented scientific consequence.
Human-spaceflight safety event with fatality, rescue, substantial prolonged crew disruption or a major official programme suspension.
S3 · Exceptional space weather with operational consequences
Officially observed exceptional space-weather event with documented broad operational consequences. A storm category alone or routine launch/test failure is insufficient.
First-of-kind scientific/medical/engineering achievement with substantive peer-reviewed or independently authoritative validation; a clinical first may be eligible without claiming mass benefit, but must be unusually consequential beyond a routine paper.
P2 · Achieved major deployment or first commercial operation
Achieved national/large-scale deployment or independently corroborated first commercial operation of a materially new technology. Funding, planned capacity, preorders and marketing launches are excluded.
P3 · Measured system-level improvement
Measured system-level societal/environmental improvement, with an authoritative bounded dataset and a clearly stated metric. Projections/beneficiary equivalents are excluded.
Public health
H1 · Major official public-health emergency
Formal WHO international emergency determination, or a source-substantiated major cross-border/national public-health emergency. A routine outbreak notice is insufficient by itself.
H2 · Substantial documented outbreak burden
A major outbreak snapshot with at least 1,000 reported cases or100 reported deaths, or comparable officially assessed exceptional international consequence. Keep suspected/confirmed cases and notice/report periods distinct.
H3 · Formal elimination or major-emergency containment
Formal country-level disease elimination/certification, or containment/end of a previously major emergency that independently metH1/H2. Elimination-as-public-health-problem is not eradication.
H4 · Major evidence-based policy or mass intervention
Major WHO/regulatory change in prevention/treatment policy grounded in substantial evidence, or a launched mass intervention intended for at least 1m people with a clearly documented programme. Targets, delivered doses and achieved coverage must remain separately labelled.
The live source feed is separate
Military Live reports displays unreviewed UN News source headlines with publication/fetch times. It is labelled Source feed, carries no editorial scores, and does not enter the curated major-event registry automatically. Country shading means headline coverage; it is not independently verified tactical activity.
Research and challenge
Research and editorial review are AI-assisted. A separate review agent examined all 99 accepted admission rationales and spot-checked selected primary sources. Corrections included duplicate citations, the difference between implanted and external equipment, authorisation versus uptake, and an internally inconsistent report date. Individual source links and admission reasons support reader verification.
How updates and uncertainty are handled
Routine updates are merged into an existing episode. A separate record needs a distinct major decision, intervention, onset or outcome. Unknown geography stays unlocated; country label anchors are jurisdiction references, not surveyed event footprints.
Amounts keep their source currency and type. Cases, deaths, affected people, displaced people, evacuation orders, accounts and credentials remain different metrics. A later reversal or correction stays in the record’s outcome and evidence.
Older entries are reviewed under the same standard. Withdrawn or deferred records remain visible in the audit with reasons; their previous inclusion is not treated as a pass.