2025 as advised in 25 excellent news tales

After a yr like 2025, it is easy for anybody who inhales giant portions of on-line information to be downhearted.

This was a yr that started with a terrifying salute from the world’s richest man. His authorities IT division, generally known as DOGE, swung a wrecking ball on the company that oversees U.S. abroad support; many specialists say widespread illness and famine would be the consequence. There was already a famine in Gaza, ceasefire however. Ukraine stays at conflict. Local weather change remains to be a factor, 2025 was one of many hottest years on file, and the tech business’s obsession with AI knowledge facilities is making it worse.

However in lots of instances, this wasn’t the complete image. Elon Musk, confronted with a number of protests and a Tesla boycott, left his controversial authorities position in Might to spend extra time along with his tech corporations. DOGE died, unlamented. In December, the World Well being Group reported fragile positive aspects in feeding Gaza that inched the area out of its famine. Ukraine stays undefeated whereas peace efforts proceed. Renewable vitality and conservation efforts had a banner yr too. And makes an attempt to rein in AI’s worst excesses scored notable wins in 2025.

All in all, there are many causes for us to be significantly involved in regards to the world that 2025 left us — but in addition loads of causes to not get depressed. Listed below are 25 tales that may assist us welcome 2026 on extra hopeful notes.

1. China’s carbon emissions dropped, for actual.

This was the yr China actually began to scrub up — and we’re not simply speaking about DeepSeek, a surprisingly highly effective and energy-efficient AI mannequin popping out of nowhere in January to point out up its U.S. rivals.

“Electrical energy provide from new wind, photo voltaic and nuclear capability was sufficient to chop coal-power output whilst demand surged,” vitality analyst Lauri Myllyvirta famous, in a examine discovering China’s carbon dioxide emissions dropped for the primary time beneath development situations. (Earlier CO2 drops occurred throughout financial downturns and the COVID pandemic.)

China, at present the world’s largest emitter of CO2, additionally pledged to extend its wind and photo voltaic capability one other six instances by 2035. The nation is already accountable for 74 p.c of all large-scale photo voltaic and wind energy building.

2. EV gross sales are surging all over the place.

You might need anticipated that the Tesla boycott, together with the Trump administration’s choice to kill a preferred electrical car tax credit score, to have a unfavorable affect on gross sales of those extra eco-friendly vehicles. However that is not what occurred.

In September, the variety of EVs bought around the globe broke by means of the two million-a-month mark for the primary time ever, in response to analysts at Rho Movement. That is a 24 p.c rise yr on yr, and a 20 p.c improve month on month. EVs are hottest in Europe and China, and adoption is slowest within the U.S. However the largest shock is the “remainder of the world” class, the place EV gross sales are up a shocking 48 p.c in 2025 thus far.

3. Solar energy is a lot cheaper than coal …

This was the yr that renewable vitality produced extra electrical energy than the world’s dirtiest vitality, coal, for the primary time, in response to a report from the vitality analysts at Ember. Coal merely now not makes financial sense. For the value of a gigawatt of coal energy, one 2025 evaluation discovered, now you can get two gigawatts of solar energy.

That is bringing a few photo voltaic sea change in India, one of many previous few coal powerhouses on the planet. The subcontinent noticed coal drop under 50 p.c of all vitality capability in 2025 for the primary time, and added greater than 30 gigawatts of photo voltaic and wind vitality (sufficient to energy practically 18 million properties). And that is simply the beginning — Indian renewable capability is predicted to extend by 50 gigawatts a yr in 2026 and past.

4. … that nations are beginning to give it away at no cost.

One other former coal powerhouse, Australia, notched up a formidable world first for solar energy in 2025. Name it a inexperienced vitality dividend: The nation has a lot capability it’ll begin providing three free hours of electrical energy per day to households no matter whether or not they have photo voltaic panels or not. Renewables, in different phrases, are beginning to obtain what nuclear energy couldn’t — turning into “too low-cost to meter.”

5. The vitality storage business is crushing it.

All that elevated renewable capability issues much less if you cannot retailer it in giant batteries for wet (or wind-free) days. Fortunately, grid storage is on a roll proper now around the globe — even within the U.S., the place tax credit have been phased out for renewables in Trump’s “Huge Stunning Invoice,” however not for the batteries which are wanted alongside them.

Storage corporations had set an eye-popping goal again in 2017: 35 gigawatts of batteries hooked as much as the U.S. energy grid by 2025. On the time, that represented an eightfold improve in capability. In the long run, they did not a lot as attain the goal as blast by means of it; the determine stood at 40 gigawatts and rising within the third quarter of 2025.

6. The world agreed to guard 30% of worldwide waters.

The Excessive Seas Treaty sounded fairly cool when the United Nations drew it up in 2023. It will be like a Paris Settlement for the oceans, a framework for making 30 p.c of worldwide waters — the areas past any nation’s management — into “Marine Protected Areas” (MPAs) with limits on transport, fishing, and different harmful human actions.

There was a catch: 60 nations’ legislatures must ratify the treaty first. Specialists anticipated this course of to take 5 years or longer. In actual fact, the sixtieth ratification got here in September. The subsequent step is to determine on the MPA places, however some nations aren’t ready: 2025 noticed the creation of the world’s largest MPA thus far.

7. Dozens of endangered species got here again from the brink.

Congratulations to the inexperienced sea turtle, which is off the endangered species record as of 2025 due to a inhabitants rebound. It joins different conservation success tales such because the peregrine falcon, the American alligator, a number of species of rhino, the okapi, the Cape vulture, and the tiny kangaroo-like brush-tailed bettong.

Mashable Mild Velocity

8. The ozone gap continues to heal.

And if humanity required proof that worldwide treaties actually can repair the planet, the unimaginable shrinking ozone gap was readily available to remind us. Scientists introduced in December that the hole within the Earth’s protecting radiation defend had been its smallest in six years. This continues a long-term development the place the yearly variable gap is closing up — completely the results of the Montreal Protocol.

9. The AI bubble did not burst — but.

Three years after OpenAI first shook the world with ChatGPT, there appears to be a sudden and near-unanimous settlement that traders have sunk an excessive amount of cash into the business; even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman now says it is a bubble. That is why an uncommon quantity of eyes have been on NVIDIA earnings in November; the chip maker had change into a $4 trillion firm on the again of particular AI-friendly GPU chip gross sales, and its success is just about protecting your entire U.S. economic system out of recession.

Fortunately for anybody with a stock-based retirement plan, NVIDIA did effectively sufficient to keep away from a 1929-style inventory market meltdown. And in a “better of each worlds” consequence, NVIDIA inventory has been on a delicate downward development since these earnings, which means that the air is perhaps leaking out of this explicit tech bubble in a lot the identical means it did with the dotcom bubble in 2000 and 2001: Slowly sufficient for a clean touchdown.

10. AI corporations ditched a few of their most ill-advised concepts …

So lengthy, Character.AI chatbots for teenagers. Farewell, bizarre AI-generated profiles on Meta. Do not come again any time quickly, ChatGPT-powered teddy bear.

11. … and crumbled when it got here to creators.

In 2025, the scramble to feed AI fashions with the work of creatives with out paying them led to one of many largest copyright payouts in historical past. Warned by a decide that it was confronted with a a lot bigger nice if it went to trial, Anthropic agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit from writers for a complete of $1.5 billion — or $3,000 per ebook in an internet archive that was used to construct its Giant Language Fashions with out the writers’ consent.

Not solely did that set a precedent for future lawsuits, “it proves AI corporations can afford to compensate copyright homeowners,” famous the Copyright Alliance. Certainly, Anthropic raised one other $13 billion similtaneously the settlement. One other case is within the works which will but set a precedent for visible artists: Midjourney, which is valued at $10 billion and can also be dealing with a large copyright lawsuit from the world’s main visible leisure corporations.

12. Some creators received Common Primary Earnings for all times.

AI might not in actual fact be coming for all our jobs, however it’s definitely coming for our artists — witness the terrifying rise in AI slop in 2025, ate up the onerous work of artists who detest it. So it is excessive time no less than one nation began paying its human artists merely to exist. That nation is Eire, which introduced it might flip its Primary Earnings for Artists (BIA) pilot scheme right into a everlasting program, beginning in 2026. The BIA pays 2,000 artists round $1,500 a month.

13. Youngsters are getting extra protections from sick results of tech.

Prefer it or not, there is a rising physique of proof displaying that social media and smartphones are dangerous for our youngsters, particularly status-sensitive teenagers. Social media specifically can result in despair, whereas being chronically on-line generally could be isolating, so there are many causes to wish to get your youngsters off their telephones in 2026.

However 2025 was a yr wherein extra corporations and political leaders began to take the chance significantly. Roblox, hit with a wave of lawsuits over a recreation platform that has attracted half of all youngsters within the U.S., grew to become the primary to make use of facial recognition age checks that goal to forestall customers beneath 13 from chatting outdoors game-based “experiences”; this may change into necessary in January. In the meantime, Australia went complete hog, banning all social media accounts for youths beneath 16, and an rising variety of states within the U.S. are enacting bans on smartphones in colleges.

14. We found out easy methods to regenerate coronary heart cells …

Coronary heart illness stays the planet’s largest killer in 2025, however there’s loads of promising analysis that might carry coronary heart assault numbers down. Most crucially, we now have found out easy methods to do one thing the physique cannot — regenerate broken muscle tissue within the coronary heart. In November, Mayo Clinic researchers revealed they’d accomplished that within the lab for the primary time, utilizing reprogrammed stem cells.

15. … and pioneered new methods to struggle most cancers.

What some specialists are calling a “golden age of most cancers therapy” continued in 2025, turning into extra personalised and fewer invasive at its leading edge. Prime of the promising record: An mRNA most cancers vaccine, developed on the College of Florida (regardless of U.S. Well being Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s choice to defund such analysis) that revs up the immune system’s skill to assault most cancers cells.

In the meantime, gene remedy therapy for aggressive leukemia has proven astonishing success, and we’re determining easy methods to destroy some tumors utilizing nothing however sound waves.

16. There are blood exams for Alzheimer’s illness now.

Within the U.S., the FDA cleared the way in which for 2 highly effective new diagnostic instruments that may detect Alzheimer’s in aged brains by way of a easy blood check. Which means therapy can begin earlier on one of many world’s largest killers — one which has probably gone under-reported for years.

17. Surgeons can function remotely around the globe.

In June 2025, a surgeon named Dr. Vip Patel eliminated a affected person’s prostate. Nothing uncommon about that — besides the truth that Patel was in Florida, and his affected person was 7,000 miles away in Angola. The operation was the first transcontinental robotic telesurgery permitted by the FDA.

The surgical procedure was “a vital step towards delivering high-quality surgical care to distant, rural and underserved communities which have lengthy lacked entry,” Patel famous. “That is greater than innovation — it’s a humanitarian leap ahead.”

18. CRISPR saved a toddler’s life for the primary time.

We have recognized for years that the gene-editing know-how generally known as CRISPR has the potential to revolutionize drugs. However 2025 was when the rubber met the street — particularly on the Kids’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the place a six month-old with a uncommon genetic dysfunction acquired the primary dose of his bespoke therapy, and is now thriving.

19. Eye implants let the aged see once more.

In a landmark examine printed this yr, 38 individuals with age-related macular degeneration — the main reason for blindness within the over-50s — had a chip inserted into their eyes. Mixed with particular glasses, the know-how lets a majority of them see once more — creating hope for an estimated 5 million individuals around the globe.

20. Love nonetheless wins.

The U.S. Supreme Court docket might have made a collection of questionable selections in 2025, lots of them by way of its creepily-named “shadow docket.” However its conservative majority additionally refused to revisit its decade-old choice that made same-sex marriage the legislation of the land. In the meantime, Thailand grew to become the primary nation in south east Asia to grant the identical rights to its LGBTQ residents — and celebrated with a mass wedding ceremony.

21. The Nationwide Guard goes house.

The U.S. president’s skill to deploy the Nationwide Guard at will, an influence that was a lot feared at the beginning of 2025, has been checked. On the final day of the yr, the Trump administration lastly stopped combating a courtroom order to return management of troops in Los Angeles to the governor of California. Per week earlier, the Supreme Court docket dominated in opposition to a deployment in Chicago. Many of the troops in Portland are returning house.

They continue to be in Washington, D.C. for now, because the administration appeals authorized orders from a decide there, and have simply arrived on the streets of New Orleans — although they will not be aiding any immigration crackdowns.

22. Millennials and Gen Z are altering the face of politics.

Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old incoming mayor of New York Metropolis, owes his victory to a wave of youthful voters which helped drive turnout to its highest stage in a long time. However he wasn’t the one one. Political observers this yr famous higher participation on either side of the aisle from youthful voters and youthful candidates — a welcome change for a rustic that’s about to have its second octogenarian president. Some are even speaking of an alliance between Millennial and Gen Z voters.

23. There is a stunning quantity of coverage settlement in America.

Mamdani and Trump’s Oval Workplace assembly might have produced probably the most heartening second of 2025: Two bitter enemies, who’d beforehand known as one another “communist” and “fascist” respectively, united on the important thing concern of affordability. There’s sturdy assist throughout each purple and blue states for decreasing medical debt, leaving Obamacare subsidies in place, legalizing hashish on the federal stage, creating extra inexpensive housing and enhancing public transit.

24. Bipartisanship nonetheless exists …

We can’t sugarcoat it: For anybody hoping that Congress would supply a examine on that almost-octogenarian authoritarian, 2025 was a largely horrible yr. However legislators did have just a few moments of bipartisan settlement — most notably on the discharge of the Epstein recordsdata, which Trump opposed till it was clear the invoice would cross with veto-proof majorities.

25. … and a bipartisan majority desires to control AI.

Congress’s different huge bipartisan effort this yr? Eradicating a moratorium on state-level regulation of AI corporations from that Huge Stunning Invoice, which went down 99-1 within the Senate. Trump tried to enact the moratorium by govt order, however he is on shaky authorized floor doing so — and a coalition of Republican and Democratic state attorneys basic strongly oppose it. Given the urgent want for extra regulation and widespread public mistrust of AI, 2026 will be the yr humanity fights again.