2025 Vox high tales: Madagascar, AI, Hungary, and extra

[ad_1] As we wind towards the tip of the 12 months, Vox is looking again with a few of our greatest tales of 2025. To construct this record, I took suggestions from my colleagues for his or her favorites and tried to offer you a spread of matters 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, offered in no specific order:

1. We’ve unlocked a holy grail in clean energy. It’s only the beginning. by Umair Irfan In April, Umair Irfan reported on one of the vital hopeful clear power tales of the 12 months: actually large 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 found 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 12 months than my colleague Benji Jones, who reported this unbelievable package deal of three tales from the island nation of Madagascar, shortly earlier than the nation’s authorities was overthrown in a navy coup. Benji coated the crises dealing with Madagascar’s coral reefs, lemurs, and chameleons — and the way conservation efforts can succeed by addressing financial wants as nicely.

3. What podcasts do to our brains by Adam Clark Estes Adam Clark Estes has accomplished a lot wonderful work this 12 months about the way in which tech rewires our brains and find out how to combat again (together with experimenting on himself and briefly ruining his life within the course of). However this story, concerning the significance of silence and what we miss out on after we’re continuously listening to podcasts as we transfer by means of the world, may be my favourite. I do know it’s the one that may most affect my listening — or not listening — in 2026.

4. Exclusive: RFK Jr. and the White House buried a major study on alcohol and cancer. Here’s what it shows. by Dylan Scott With the whole lot occurring on the well being beat this 12 months, it’s a miracle my colleague Dylan Scott has had time to assist co-host the As we speak, Defined publication as nicely. Someway he has, although, and he additionally squeezed in a significant scoop this September: He obtained the conclusions of a significant alcohol research that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Well being and Human Companies 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: Americans drank less in 2025 .)

5. The most likely AI apocalypse by Eric Levitz 2025 was, sadly, a giant 12 months for reckoning with the hazards of AI. It’s a dreary beat, however Eric Levitz did it finest with this story about one potential apocalypse: what he describes as “absolutely automated neofeudalism,” the place AI helps safe the facility 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 similar to A Christmas Carol ’s Ebenezer Scrooge, there’s nonetheless time to stave off that future.

6. Their democracy died. They have lessons for America about Trump’s power grab. by Zack Beauchamp My colleague Zack Beauchamp has accomplished unbelievable work masking the Trump administration’s assault on democracy this 12 months, drawing from his years of expertise masking different international locations’ backsliding. Virtually a 12 months into Trump 2.0, his February story concerning the parallels between Trump and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán — and the teachings Individuals ought to take from Hungary’s disaster — remains to be an important roadmap.

7. A magical world at the ocean’s edge from Vox’s Unexplainable podcast Vox’s Unexplainable podcast is persistently enjoyable and interesting, 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 large issues like local weather change really feel impossibly arduous to understand, and to maintain appreciating magnificence as you discover it. It’s the proper episode to hold into 2026.

8. The great American classic we’ve been misreading for 100 years by Constance Grady Constance Grady marked the a hundredth 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 collection of accidents. It’s an ideal reminder of what makes a novel many people seemingly haven’t revisited since highschool so timeless.

9. America’s fastest-growing suburbs are about to get very expensive by Marina Bolotnikova Merriam-Webster tells us that the phrase of the 12 months in 2025 was “slop” — however “affordability” may be one of many runners-up, no less than in US politics ( don’t tell Donald Trump ). In July, Marina Bolotnikova wrote a couple of urgent story from the frontier of the American housing market, the place America’s spacious, sprawling, reasonably priced suburbs are about to succeed in their outer restrict — and get very costly. To repair it, she argues, it may be time to look to the Abundance playbook, in 2026 and past.

10. Republicans have a Nazi problem from Vox’s As we speak, Defined podcast In November, Vox’s As we speak, Defined podcast coated a late-breaking candidate for one of many greatest tales of the 12 months: The Republican civil warfare that has erupted over the get together’s more and more clear Nazi drawback. Co-host Noel King and the whole As we speak, Defined staff expertly break down what’s occurring, how we bought right here, and the very excessive stakes for the nation.

Bonus: Don’t let a messy house stop you from hosting by Allie Volpe Along with this text, I additionally host Vox’s The Logoff . Meaning I spend quite a lot of time enthusiastic about two issues: Donald Trump, and the perfect methods to really sign off, flee the web, and reclaim a bit little bit of mind house from a nonstop information cycle. This story, from Allie Volpe, was one in all my favourite Logoff recs of the 12 months: She writes that we should always all cease letting a messy home maintain us from internet hosting, and prioritize spending extra time with our associates as a substitute. I’m going to attempt to do extra of that in 2026, and I hope you do too!