JANUARY 4. 2026

Despite Trump-era reversals, 2025 still saw environmental wins. Here are 7 worth noting.

Environmental advocates notched key wins at local and state levels this year — despite the Trump administration’s rollbacks.

‘Imagination for the Other Fellow’

In his victory speech, Zohran Mamdani vowed to put forward “the most ambitious agenda” New York City had seen since the administration of Fiorello La

Trump’s War

“It was a brilliant operation, actually. ” So claimed Donald Trump early this morning in a phone call with The New York Times about the US military’s

JANUARY 3. 2026

Policies of Denial

On November 14 the Guardian reported, on the basis of internal military documents, that the United States was “planning for the long-term division of

Louisiana town fights for relief after a billion-dollar oil disaster

Federal and state officials have sued the company behind the blast, but Roseland, Louisiana, residents say the case won’t bring relief to their town.

JANUARY 2. 2026

Sanctuary City

Come January, New York City will be led by an immigrant—and, in a series of firsts, by a Muslim Indian American from Uganda. This kind of representation

Wildfire smoke is a national crisis, and it’s worse than you think

Greenhouse gas and particulate emissions from fires around the world may be 70 percent higher than once believed.

University of Nebraska is eliminating a key climate research department

As Nebraska's weather intensifies, farmers are losing a critical resource to understand it.

JANUARY 1. 2026

Wielding the Ice Pick

There is a steeliness to Zohran Mamdani that wasn’t obvious when he first appeared as a candidate for mayor, ablaze with ideas while extending a panoramic

Until the Next Storm

Climate policy didn’t feature much in this mayoral election, possibly because much of the exciting legislation necessary to start moving New York toward a

DECEMBER 31. 2025

Democratic Excellence

Zohran Mamdani has introduced several changes to American politics—joining ideological maximalism to policy minimalism, crafting a winning political

The Radiance of Tentative Hope

In less suspenseful years a mayoral election in New York City would be a purely local event, but in precarious 2025 it was a national and even

DECEMBER 30. 2025

Leaving Khartoum

On the afternoon of Friday, April 14, 2023, as the last days of Ramadan drew to an end, I went to have iftar with my extended family in Omdurman, across

DECEMBER 29. 2025

Guardians of the Sierra Madre

Blurring the boundaries between terror and tenderness

The Plan

"How much of the pleasure of making a garden is in the plan? "

Movies of Mystery and Monstrosity

What we're watching this winter

Implied Mass

On facing the Pegasus problem logically.

Platypus

On contradictions and cryptids

Lord God Bird

Does the ivory-billed woodpecker still exist?

Ghosts on the Range

Searching for evil and finding ourselves amidst a haunting pattern of cattle mutilations in the West