As we wind towards the top of the yr, Vox is having a look again with a few of our greatest tales of 2025. To construct this listing, I took suggestions from my colleagues for his or her favorites and tried to offer you a variety of subjects to dive into. Whether or not you’re slogging by means of a day of labor or taking a while off, I hope these entertain and inform you. Right here they’re, introduced in no explicit order:
1. We’ve unlocked a holy grail in clear power. It’s solely the start. by Umair Irfan
In April, Umair Irfan reported on probably the most hopeful clear power tales of the yr: actually massive batteries. New grid-scale batteries, he writes, are a key ingredient to harnessing the potential of wind and photo voltaic power, in addition to a much-needed enchancment to America’s archaic grid: “the peanut butter to the chocolate of renewable power, making all the perfect traits about clear power even higher and balancing out a few of its downsides.”
2. Most animals on this island nation are discovered nowhere else on Earth. And now they’re vanishing. by Benji Jones and Paige Vega
It’s potential that nobody at Vox has had a extra attention-grabbing yr than my colleague Benji Jones, who reported this unbelievable bundle of three tales from the island nation of Madagascar, shortly earlier than the nation’s authorities was overthrown in a army coup. Benji lined the crises going through Madagascar’s coral reefs, lemurs, and chameleons — and the way conservation efforts can succeed by addressing financial wants as properly.
3. What podcasts do to our brains by Adam Clark Estes
Adam Clark Estes has completed a lot wonderful work this yr about the way in which tech rewires our brains and the way to combat again (together with experimenting on himself and briefly ruining his life within the course of). However this story, in regards to the significance of silence and what we miss out on after we’re continually listening to podcasts as we transfer by means of the world, is perhaps my favourite. I do know it’s the one that may most affect my listening — or not listening — in 2026.
With every thing occurring on the well being beat this yr, it’s a miracle my colleague Dylan Scott has had time to assist co-host the As we speak, Defined e-newsletter as properly. By some means he has, although, and he additionally squeezed in a serious scoop this September: He obtained the conclusions of a serious alcohol examine that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Well being and Human Providers Division tried to bury, which discovered new proof linking alcohol consumption to most cancers mortality. (Vox’s Bryan Walsh has some excellent news about that, although: People drank much less in 2025.)
5. The most certainly AI apocalypse by Eric Levitz
2025 was, sadly, an enormous yr for reckoning with the hazards of AI. It’s a dreary beat, however Eric Levitz did it greatest with this story about one potential apocalypse: what he describes as “totally automated neofeudalism,” the place AI helps safe the ability of a small caste of oligarchical elites over all the remainder of us. The excellent news, he writes, is we’re not there but — and identical to A Christmas Carol’s Ebenezer Scrooge, there’s nonetheless time to stave off that future.
6. Their democracy died. They’ve classes for America about Trump’s energy seize. by Zack Beauchamp
My colleague Zack Beauchamp has completed unbelievable work masking the Trump administration’s assault on democracy this yr, drawing from his years of expertise masking different international locations’ backsliding. Nearly a yr into Trump 2.0, his February story in regards to the parallels between Trump and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán — and the teachings People ought to take from Hungary’s disaster — continues to be an important roadmap.
7. A magical world on the ocean’s edge from Vox’s Unexplainable podcast
Vox’s Unexplainable podcast is constantly enjoyable and engaging, however this episode from July, produced by Byrd Pinkerton, packs a sneaky emotional punch too. She tells the story of the tide swimming pools she loves on the California shoreline: how local weather change is impacting their delicate ecosystem, and the way the researchers who love them too are coping with that change. The episode ends with a reminder to maintain specializing in the issues you’ll be able to management, even when massive issues like local weather change really feel impossibly arduous to know, and to maintain appreciating magnificence as you discover it. It’s the proper episode to hold into 2026.
8. The nice American basic we’ve been misreading for 100 years by Constance Grady
Constance Grady marked the one centesimal anniversary of the basic novel The Nice Gatsby with this account of how F. Scott Fitzgerald’s seminal story got here to be and the way it has been cemented as an all-time basic, partly by means of a sequence of accidents. It’s an ideal reminder of what makes a novel many people possible haven’t revisited since highschool so timeless.
9. America’s fastest-growing suburbs are about to get very costly by Marina Bolotnikova
Merriam-Webster tells us that the phrase of the yr in 2025 was “slop” — however “affordability” is perhaps one of many runners-up, at the least in US politics (don’t inform Donald Trump). In July, Marina Bolotnikova wrote a few urgent story from the frontier of the American housing market, the place America’s spacious, sprawling, inexpensive suburbs are about to succeed in their outer restrict — and get very costly. To repair it, she argues, it is perhaps time to look to the Abundance playbook, in 2026 and past.
10. Republicans have a Nazi drawback from Vox’s As we speak, Defined podcast
In November, Vox’s As we speak, Defined podcast lined a late-breaking candidate for one of many greatest tales of the yr: The Republican civil conflict that has erupted over the occasion’s more and more clear Nazi drawback. Co-host Noel King and all the As we speak, Defined staff expertly break down what’s occurring, how we acquired right here, and the very excessive stakes for the nation.
Bonus: Don’t let a messy home cease you from internet hosting by Allie Volpe
Along with this text, I additionally host Vox’s The Logoff. Which means I spend a number of time occupied with two issues: Donald Trump, and the perfect methods to really log out, flee the web, and reclaim somewhat little bit of mind house from a nonstop information cycle. This story, from Allie Volpe, was considered one of my favourite Logoff recs of the yr: She writes that we should always all cease letting a messy home maintain us from internet hosting, and prioritize spending extra time with our mates as a substitute. I’m going to attempt to do extra of that in 2026, and I hope you do too!
A model of this story initially appeared within the As we speak, Defined e-newsletter. Join right here!
