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 most hopeful clean energy stories of the year: really big batteries. New grid-scale batteries, he writes, are a key ingredient to harnessing the potential of wind and solar energy, as well as a much-needed improvement to America’s archaic grid: “the peanut butter to the chocolate of renewable energy, making all the best traits about clean energy even better and balancing out some 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 possible that no one at Vox has had a more interesting year than my colleague Benji Jones, who reported this incredible package of three stories from the island nation of Madagascar, shortly before the country’s government was overthrown in a military coup. Benji covered the crises facing Madagascar’s coral reefs, lemurs, and chameleons — and how conservation efforts can succeed by addressing economic needs as well.
3. What podcasts do to our brains by Adam Clark Estes
Adam Clark Estes has done so much amazing work this year about the way tech rewires our brains and how to fight back (including experimenting on himself and briefly ruining his life in the process). But this story, about the importance of silence and what we miss out on when we’re constantly listening to podcasts as we move through the world, might be my favorite. I know it’s the one that will most influence 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 everything happening on the health beat this year, it’s a miracle my colleague Dylan Scott has had time to help co-host this newsletter as well. Somehow he has, though, and he also squeezed in a major scoop this September: He obtained the conclusions of a major alcohol study that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Health and Human Services Department tried to bury, which found new evidence linking alcohol consumption to cancer mortality. (Vox’s Bryan Walsh has some good news about that, though: Americans drank less in 2025.)
5. The most likely AI apocalypse by Eric Levitz
2025 was, unfortunately, a big year for reckoning with the dangers of AI. It’s a dreary beat, but Eric Levitz did it best with this story about one possible apocalypse: what he describes as “fully automated neofeudalism,” where AI helps secure the power of a small caste of oligarchical elites over all the rest of us. The good news, he writes, is we’re not there yet — and just like A Christmas Carol’s Ebenezer Scrooge, there’s still 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 done incredible work covering the Trump administration’s assault on democracy this year, drawing from his years of experience covering other countries’ backsliding. Almost a year into Trump 2.0, his February story about the parallels between Trump and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán — and the lessons Americans should take from Hungary’s crisis — is still a vital roadmap.
7. A magical world at the ocean’s edge from Vox’s Unexplainable podcast
Vox’s Unexplainable podcast is consistently fun and fascinating, but this episode from July, produced by Byrd Pinkerton, packs a sneaky emotional punch too. She tells the story of the tide pools she loves on the California coastline: how climate change is impacting their delicate ecosystem, and how the researchers who love them too are dealing with that change. The episode ends with a reminder to keep focusing on the things you can control, even when big problems like climate change feel impossibly hard to grasp, and to keep appreciating beauty as you find it. It’s the perfect episode to carry into 2026.
8. The great American classic we’ve been misreading for 100 years by Constance Grady
Constance Grady marked the 100th anniversary of the classic novel The Great Gatsby with this account of how F. Scott Fitzgerald’s seminal story came to be and how it has been cemented as an all-time classic, in part through a series of accidents. It’s a perfect reminder of what makes a novel many of us likely haven’t revisited since high school so timeless.
9. America’s fastest-growing suburbs are about to get very expensive by Marina Bolotnikova
Merriam-Webster tells us that the word of the year in 2025 was “slop” — but “affordability” might be one of the runners-up, at least in US politics (don’t tell Donald Trump). In July, Marina Bolotnikova wrote about a pressing story from the frontier of the American housing market, where America’s spacious, sprawling, affordable suburbs are about to reach their outer limit — and get very expensive. To fix it, she argues, it might be time to look to the Abundance playbook, in 2026 and beyond.
10. Republicans have a Nazi problem from Vox's Today, Explained podcast
In November, Vox’s Today, Explained podcast covered a late-breaking candidate for one of the biggest stories of the year: The Republican civil war that has erupted over the party’s increasingly clear Nazi problem. Co-host Noel King and the entire Today, Explained team expertly break down what’s happening, how we got here, and the very high stakes for the country.
Bonus: Don’t let a messy house stop you from hosting by Allie Volpe
In addition to this newsletter, I also host Vox’s The Logoff. That means I spend a lot of time thinking about two things: Donald Trump, and the best ways to actually log off, flee the internet, and reclaim a little bit of brain space from a nonstop news cycle. This story, from Allie Volpe, was one of my favorite Logoff recs of the year: She writes that we should all stop letting a messy house keep us from hosting, and prioritize spending more time with our friends instead. I’m going to try to do more of that in 2026, and I hope you do too!
