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As 2025 comes to a close, we’re continuing to look back at some of the year’s best news — because while it was a rough year, that’s not the full story.
There was so much good that happened in 2025 — and those stories deserve to be celebrated, too.
Today, you’ll read through stories of progress in sports, arts, and culture, for animals, and in science and technology.
Sports, Arts, and Culture
Penguin Random House dropped a ‘book ban’ clothing line; 100% of the profits helped libraries
The iconic book publisher and defender of the First Amendment partnered with Online Ceramics, a Los Angeles-based clothing brand that makes hand-dyed apparel (most notably for A24 and the Grateful Dead) to debut a clothing collaboration, aptly titled “Reading Is A Right.”
Billie Eilish pushed her music label to ‘upcycle’ 400k unsold concert tees into new merch
Along with UMG’s merchandise arm, Bravado, Eilish and her mother, Maggie Baird, spearheaded an initiative to take decades’ worth of unsold apparel from a massive Nashville warehouse and give it a new life.
Olympic rugby player Ilona Maher got her own Barbie doll, complete with broad shoulders
It was part of a team of four new Barbie dolls modeled after professional rugby players who have a history of showing their confidence on the playing field and encouraging young girls to do the same.
Condé Nast, the publisher behind Vogue, finally banned fur after decades of animal rights protests
The decision, which includes exceptions for what are outlined as “byproducts of subsistence and Indigenous practices,” marked a symbolic turning point within the fashion media landscape due to Condé Nast’s global reach.
2025’s audiobook of the year was John Green’s ‘Everything is Tuberculosis,’ chosen by 4,000 independent bookstores
During the press tour for “Everything Is Tuberculosis” earlier in the year, Green argued that cuts to foreign aid “are making global health outcomes worse.”
A creative campaign let people buy a pebble from the ‘tariffed’ Herd Island penguins to support wildlife conservation
On April 2, President Donald Trump imposed a 10% tariff on goods exported from a handful of uninhabited volcanic islands near Antarctica. Well, uninhabited by humans.
Colorado honored Jane Goodall’s birthday with a new ‘Animals Matter’ holiday
Even when she turned 91 on April 3, Goodall has continued her tireless efforts to advocate for the planet and all living beings who inhabit it until she passed away on October 1
One of the rarest parrot species in Brazil doubled in population: ‘An unlikely comeback’
Thanks to a project to install artificial nests on an island on the Paraná coast, the number of parrots almost doubled in 20 years, taking the bird from “endangered” to “near threatened” status, the only case of its kind in Brazil.
Scientists studied a ‘breast-cancer-detecting bra’ in space: ‘10 years of tumor growth can occur in 10 days’
The device is a flexible patch that can be attached to the undergarment, allowing the wearer to move an ultrasound tracker along the patch and image the breast tissue from different, more dynamic angles.
Scientists invented a ‘smelling gel’ that seduces coral to repopulate dying reefs
Coral larvae are particularly picky about where they attach and settle down. One of the ways they find their home is by “smelling” chemicals in the water that are associated with healthy reefs.
Scientists invented a ‘glue gun’ filled with 3D-printed materials that heal broken bones ‘in minutes’
Placed directly on the area of impact, the 3D-printed grafts offer flexibility while also releasing anti-inflammatory antibiotics and promoting natural bone regrowth at the site.
Scientists invented a ‘living’ concrete that heals its own cracks with sunlight
Despite concrete being the most widely used building material on Earth, its cracks — big or small — can lead to catastrophic structural issues, even leading to the collapse of a building, bridge, or highway. And production of cement contributes significantly to carbon emissions.
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