Excerpts (it’s worth reading the entire 4,500 words):
The biggest story of 2025, to judge from the number of people who sent it to me, was this raccoon:
In case you somehow missed this story: In late November, this raccoon got into a state liquor store in Ashland, Va., by falling though the ceiling. Once inside, the raccoon ransacked the store, leaving a trail of broken bottles…
FEBRUARY
…President Trump threatens to slap tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada and China, all of which were originally built by Americans. Tariffs are taxes, so this would mean that the American consumer would pay more for these goods. To understand why this is a shrewd business tactic, consider an analogy: You’re in a dispute with your neighbor, Bob. So you go to Bob’s house and ring his doorbell. When he opens the door, you turn around and punch the American consumer in the face. Take that, Bob!
MARCH
On a happier note, two astronauts finally return to Earth after being stranded aboard the International Space Station for nine months. They say they’re “happy to be home,” but add “that’s the last time we’re booking on Spirit.”
MAY
On Memorial Day, a somber occasion when America honors its war dead, Trump posts a social-media message strongly reminiscent of the Gettysburg Address in its dignity and thoughtful eloquence. It begins (really): “HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY TO ALL, INCLUDING THE SCUM THAT SPENT THE LAST FOUR YEARS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY THROUGH WARPED RADICAL LEFT MINDS…”
…and so on for 109 thoughtful capitalized words, not one of which mentions our nation’s war dead, but you only have so much space on social media.
In 2025 the world produced record harvests of wheat, rice and soybeans for the third consecutive year, pushing grain prices down 8 percent and rice prices to their lowest in 18 years…
In September, The Lancet released a report with one of the most extraordinary statistics I’ve ever seen: since 2010, humanity’s total burden of illness and early death has dropped by 12.6 percent, driven by declining deaths from the world’s deadliest infectious diseases: tuberculosis, lower respiratory infections, diarrhoea, HIV/AIDS, all down by between 25 and 49 percent. This progress has been so dramatic that for the first time in our species’ history, lifestyle diseases (heart disease, cancer, diabetes) have displaced infectious illness as the dominant global threat. And here, mortality is falling too.
In 2025 the United States will almost certainly record its lowest murder rate in history. Not since the pandemic, not since the 1990s crime wave, but lower than any year since the FBI began tracking in 1960. Violent crime is at its lowest level since 1968. Property crime is at the lowest rate ever measured.
In August, the WHO and UNICEF released data showing that over the last decade 961 million people gained access to safe drinking water, 1.2 billion gained safe sanitation, and 1.5 billion gained basic hygiene services. Over the same period the number of people without electricity fell by 292 million, even as the global population grew by 760 million. According to the International Energy Agency, this represents the fastest expansion of electricity access in history.
Divide these numbers by ten to get the annual improvements. (For “access to safe drinking water,” that works out to 263,000 people per day.) Read the entire thing to feel better!
Change is hard because sometimes you need your discomfort to get huge before you will feel it’s bad enough to make a change or leave a situation. Maybe your tolerance for bullshit is a little too high.
The ole’ devil you know, so to speak.
But change is possible! Don’t forget to ask yourself, is this helping me?
Good news from Fix the News (previous week’s, they’re taking the rest of December off):
Wildlife rangers in southern Africa have plenty of experience in chasing off poachers — but often lack the tools to actually catch the culprits. Now parks in South Africa and Zimbabwe have started employing police dogs from Wales, with great success. Nonprofit Dogs4Wildlife, which provides the dogs, gives priority to smaller reserves, which have far fewer anti-poaching resources than Africa’s most renowned parks. “Some of the smaller wildlife reserves have almost eradicated poaching completely, just because of the deterrent value.” CNN
I was working in the lab late one night when my eyes beheld an eerie sight. Preventable diseases were on the rise and suddenly, to my surprise They did the slash — the monster slash! The budget slash — and our missions were scrapped. The science slash — turned our research to ash. They did the slash — they did the monster slash!
Scientists have used artificial intelligence to create an enzyme that can eat one of the toughest plastics on Earth: the kind used in foam mattresses and sneakers. The enzyme breaks polyurethane down into reusable chemicals in just 12 hours at 50°C, turning it back into raw materials. Truly circular recycling. Wild. We know it’s already in the headline, but did we mention they used AI to design this thing? Ars Technica
Swimmers dive into Chicago river after 98 years. Some 300 swimmers looped through downtown Chicago in the first official river swim since 1927, a milestone made possible by decades of cleanup, starting with the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and Clean Water Act in the 1970s. Volunteers and new infrastructure revived the waterway, luring back fish, beavers, and even ‘Chonkosaurus,’ a giant snapping turtle. The Guardian
Ebola outbreak in the DRC met with absolutely off-the-charts public health capacity. The DRC just confirmed a new outbreak of Ebola, BUTin under 24 hours, the virus was isolated, sequenced and the sequence data made publicly available. Genuinely incredible to see this kind of resolution and turnaround go from sci-fi to feasible over the course of the last decade. Wow.
And for some reason, this picture is just super funny to me:
Something light and easy this week: “In Somerville, Massachusetts, a community bike path has, in recent months, become a hotly contested political constituency.”
US prison population falls to its lowest in decades. America’s prison population has declined to its lowest level since 1992, with around 1.2 million people behind bars, down from a 2009 peak of 1.6 million. The shift reflects sentencing reforms, drug decriminalisation, diversion to treatment, and falling violent crime. The Atlantic
This unemployed stray cat had no idea he was about to land a full-time job as a dog trainer when he walked into a building looking for shelter… When Sylvester first walked into the Leamington Guide Dogs facility he didn’t even bring a resume… He specializes in “Cat distraction training,” a critical component of guide dog training.
Assam slashes child marriage by 81% in two years. Child marriage in the northeastern Indian state, home to over 30 million people, dropped by 81% between 2021 and 2024, following a statewide crackdown that included thousands of arrests, community outreach, and expanded education for girls. Authorities are now aiming for full elimination by 2026. The shift marks one of India’s sharpest ever reductions in child marriage, tackling a practice long considered socially entrenched. India Today
“The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.” Bill Gates has announced plans to give away nearly $200 billion between now and 2045, after which the Gates Foundation will permanently close its doors.In a wide-ranging interview with the New York Times (gift link), he explains why this is the time to go all in given Trump’s assault on global health, the promise of more lifesaving innovations in the near future, and the potential impact of AI.
…by extras, that somehow made it into the final film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVLq3xSClQA (8 min 25 seconds plus grrr commercials). Includes the famous Storm Trooper hitting the top of a door frame with his helmet:
In the past five years, over 100 million people in Africa have gained access to electricity. Liberia has seen access go from 5% in 2017 to 35% today, Rwanda has gone from 6% in 2009 to 75% today, Nigeria is now at 70%, up from 50% a decade ago, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea have reached 90%, and Rwanda, Senegal and Kenya are all targeting universal access by 2030. Global Energy Prize
⚡ Those may seem like dry numbers but it’s life-changing stuff; for a vivid look at how lives change when people gain access to electric power, check out Robert Caro’s piece on pre- and post-electricity life in 1930s rural Texas in “The Sad Irons.”
America’s radical experiment in emptying youth prisons worked In 2000, over 100,000 young Americans were locked up in juvenile detention facilities. By 2022, that number had plummeted by 75%, with 29 states experiencing even greater declines. The reduction came alongside major drops in youth crime – arrests for serious violent crimes by juveniles have fallen 78% from their peak in the 90s. New York Times
Laugh / learn links log 