2025 in review from NBC News, Vox, GMA, Time, and Google for New Year's Eve

Happy New Year's Eve! For the final year-end retrospective of 2025, I'm going through the best year-in-review videos, beginning with NBC News' 2025 Year in Review: Trump tariffs, Charlie Kirk, Zohran Mamdani, Rob Reiner and more.

NBC News recaps 2025's biggest news stories, from tariffs imposed by President Trump, the murder of political activist Charlie Kirk, Zohran Mamdani's victory in the New York City mayoral election and more.

It's been quite the year, as headlines from weather, space, and entertainment joined economics, politics, and general news as the highlights of 2025.*

Vox had their own take on the year about to end in 2025, in 8 minutes.

2025 was dominated by the second iteration of the Trump administration, the release of the Epstein files, and government shakeups that ranged from the longest federal shutdown in history to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene announcing her resignation. It was also a year of historic political moments — from a ceasefire in Gaza to Gen Z-led government protests abroad, and the rise of young politicians like Zohran Mamdani.

Along the way, the world got its first American pope, Labubu became a household name, and China upended the AI conversation with the introduction of DeepSeek. Amid seemingly endless government transitions, the year closed with a growing sense of unrest as the US launched new strikes in multiple countries. Let’s take a look back at the jam-packed events that defined 2025.

I don't recall NBC News mentioning Labubu, while Vox made the collectables their featured image of 2025. So did Good Morning America's 'The Year' looks at our obsessions in 2025.

Deborah Roberts takes us through a preview of the movies, TV shows, trends and more that we just couldn't get enough of this year ahead of "The Year's" premiere on Dec. 29.

That's a good summary of entertainment and pop culture beyond movies, which I already covered, as well as being a promotional announcement disguised as a news segment. As I last mentioned in Local news covers the marching bands in the 2025 Macy's Parade, "It's not just news value that's driving it."

For a more somber look at the year in entertainment and culture, I'm sharing TIME's In Memoriam: Notable People We Lost in 2025.

A moment to look back and reflect on some of the noteworthy people who died this year.

R.I.P.

I close with Google's 2025 — Year in Search.

This year, we searched for ways to rediscover, reinvent, and rethink what’s possible. See how people reimagined their worlds in 2025.

This is driven by the users, not filtered through professional expert news judgment, but it covered most of the same material. Also, it was inspiring, which is more than I can say about the rest of the videos. That makes it a fit way to end the year.

Stay tuned for some of my favorite bands at the Rose Parade for New Year's Day.

*Speaking of space, I whined about NASA not uploading a 2025 in review video on Monday. The U.S. space agency finally did yesterday, combining it with a look ahead to 2026. I plan on posting that on Saturday, January 3rd. I can at least continue one of my New Year's traditions!

TODAY reveals TIME's people of the year for 2025

After skipping last year, I'm featuring Time's Person of the Year. Watch TODAY announce Architects of AI Named Time’s 2025 Person of the Year.

Time’s editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs joins TODAY with the exclusive announcement that the architects of AI have been selected as the 2025 Time Person of the Year. "Never before has so much power been concentrated in so few individuals," Jacobs says.

I'm repeating what I wrote about the Economics Nobel Prize in Science, peace, economics, and literature winners for Nobel Prize Day 2025.

This award is as much about technology as it is about economics. May it mean that AI be a net benefit for the economy. Right now, it looks like it's doing more destruction than creation.

If the projections are correct, it will be doing both, with 20% of people losing their current jobs while quintupling GDP. Yikes! That's an outcome the residents of Richistan would approve of. As for the rest of us, I'll repeat what I wrote a dozen years ago in Robots are coming for our jobs, "the loss of jobs to robots will be the major effect of the Singularity, not everyone becoming cyborgs or the machines enslaving or killing off humanity." It's not like we weren't warned.

TODAY revealed the rest of TIME's picks earlier in the week, beginning with Leonardo DiCaprio is Named Time 2025 Entertainer of the Year.

TODAY exclusively reveals Time’s picks for 2025 entertainer of the year and CEO of the year.

I'll be writing more about DiCaprio when I blog about his nominations at the Critics Choice Awards and Golden Globe Awards. As for Neal Mohan, I'd heard of him before, but didn't pay much attention to him. Now he has my attention.

I close with A’ja Wilson Named Time’s 2025 Athlete of the Year.

TODAY exclusively reveals Time’s picks for 2025 Athlete of the Year and Breakthrough of the Year: A’ja Wilson and K-Pop Demon Hunters!

I'm recycling what I wrote in Earthquake, eclipse, and other news on 'SNL' last year.

I started following women's basketball when I was attending UCLA, as it was easier to play in the band for women's games than men's games when I was a sophomore. I thought they were more fun even then. I guess that make me an early adopter. I'm pleased to see everyone catch up to me, four plus decades later.

Everyone now includes TIME.

TIME made a good save by naming KPop Demon Hunters Breakthrough of the Year. They could just as easily have been Entertainers of the Year. I'll write about their nominations, too. That could be as early as tomorrow for the Sunday entertainment feature. Stay tuned.

De-extinction update — dire wolves and woolly mice

Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live Saturday Night Live showed some genetically modified woolly mice, to which I responded "I'm glad to see progress being made on mammoth de-extinction — science!" The company behind the woolly mice revealed an even bigger development this week, which TIME profiled in No Longer Extinct? Colossal Biosciences' Dire Wolf Project.

Colossal Biosciences' project to revive the once-extinct dire wolf could also prevent existing but endangered animals from slipping into extinction themselves.

On the one hand, this is a great technological and scientific advancement. On the other, these aren't really dire wolves. They're genetically modified gray wolves with about a dozen dire wolf genes, which is still quite an accomplishment. If nothing else, they're proof of concept and cool animals in their own right.

Speaking of proof of concept, TIME reported Scientists Genetically Engineer Mice with Woolly Mammoth Like Hair last month.

Extinction is typically for good. Once a species winks out, it survives only in memory and the fossil record. When it comes to the woolly mammoth, however, that rule has now been bent. It’s been 4,000 years since the eight-ton, 12-foot, elephant-like beast walked the Earth, but part of its DNA now operates inside several litters of four-inch, half-ounce mice created by scientists at the Dallas-based Colossal Laboratories and Biosciences.

Cute, but the scientist interviewed at the end was not that impressed. Neither was Anton Petrov, who I first featured in Ig Nobel Prizes for April Fools Day 2025, a holiday special, in Let's Talk About the Woolly Mammoth Mice That Were Just Created.

Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about the woolly mice (please note a small correction in the video comments about the base pair/gene differences between mammoths and elephants)[.]
...
Small correction (thanks Jake): It's not 1.5 million gene differences, but 1.5 million base pairs (building blocks of DNA)[.]
Mouse genome is believed to contain around 80,000 genes (but only 22000 create proteins) and here 8 were affected[.]

A more realistic comparison would be to use total number of base pairs and for Asian elephants there are 3.38 billion base pairs and it looks like 1.5 million are different between elephants and mammoths[.]

Still a lot[.]

Petrov's objection I most agree with is the ethical and legal one — obtaining an elephant to experiment on. Just the same, I'm more optimistic than he is, even if these are stunts.

That's a wrap for today. Stay tuned for a retrospective on Wayback Wednesday tomorrow.

Stewart, Oliver, Meyers, and Kimmel take closer looks at 'Gulf of America Day' and Musk on the cover of Time

I told my readers "stay tuned for comic takes on America's slide into autocracy...The late-night talk-show hosts have a lot of material" at the end of CNBC asks 'Can New Orleans Save Its Homes From Flooding Again?' They lived up to my expectations, beginning with Jon Stewart & John Oliver Welcome America to Its Trump Monarchy Era | The Daily Show.

Jon Stewart tackles Trump's attempt to be the Super Bowl MVP and examines the president's rejection of federal agencies, birthright citizenship, and basic constitutional checks and balances. Plus, John Oliver welcomes America to its monarchy era.

"Gulf of America Day" — *snort* I don't think it will ever be bigger than National Pizza Day, let alone the Super Bowl! Also, John Oliver would know about monarchies and imperialism.

Seth Meyers had more to say about "Gulf of America Day" and America's slide into autocracy in Trump and Musk Lash Out After Judge Blocks DOGE Takeover, Musk Targets CFPB: A Closer Look.

Seth takes a closer look at "President" Elon Musk calling for a judge to be impeached after blocking Musk's access to Americans' personal data, while Musk's second in command, New York businessman Donald Trump, claimed Musk has nothing to gain from dismantling the government.

Hoover Cleveland is surprisingly sanguine about Elon Musk. Who does he think Musk is, Vladimir Putin?

I close with Jimmy Kimmel's monologue, Trump Trolls Taylor Swift in Super Bowl Rant, Kanye’s Crazy Posts & Elon Kisses Up to Donald.

Jimmy ate all the food for the Super Bowl, we look back at the crazy conspiracies about the NFL rigging games, Kendrick Lamar was the star of the halftime show, Philly fans went crazy after the win, Kanye is making a serious run at the title for World’s Worst Person after going literally nuts on Twitter this weekend, he bought commercial time during the game in several markets including LA, Trump was at the Super Bowl and posted several times about Taylor Swift, he decided to declare a war on pennies during the game, he took away Joe Biden’s access to daily intelligence briefings, Elon Musk will be featured on the cover of Time Magazine, there was a deer calling competition in Germany, and we ask people their opinions on Super Bowl commercials we made up in a new edition of Lie Witness News.

If anything, Musk is being more deferential to Trump that Trump is to Musk. Putin would never do that.

Stay tuned for a post about what could be the pandemic.

Doomsday Clock now at 89 seconds to midnight

After celebrating Lunar New Year, I told my readers to "Stay tuned for the Doomsday Clock." Watch Inside Edition report Doomsday Clock Says We Are Closer to Disaster.

Humans may be one step closer to destroying the world, or at least that's what scientists behind the Doomsday Clock think. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is a nonprofit organization dedicated to tracking human-made threats to the environment. Scientists predicted we were at a metaphorical 7 minutes to midnight in 1947. The Doomsday Clock's minute hand has been reset 26 times since then. In 2025, scientists predict we are 89 seconds from midnight.

For my reaction, I'm repeating what I wrote in Company Man asks 'The Decline of Red Lobster...What Happened?' A tale of the Retail Apocalypse.

I often write that Inside Edition is not the hardest news source, but the flip side of that is that it humanizes its stories and presents them in accessible and entertaining ways. This report served as a good example of all that.

This is probably the grimmest video from Inside Edition I've ever embedded here and it still served as a good example of my assessment of the program.

TIME presented the core of the announcement essentially uncut in The Doomsday Clock Just Moved Closer to Midnight.

The Doomsday Clock was set to 89 seconds to midnight, the closest to midnight ever in its 78-year history. It’s the duty of the United States, China, and Russia to lead the world back from the brink. Humanity’s continuing existence depends on immediate action from the world’s leaders.

I agree with the assessment, but good luck getting the horse loose in the hospital to do something useful about any of it. He thinks climate change is a hoax, renewable energy is a fraud, misinformation is the real news, and AI should be encouraged, not regulated. Good leadership on those issues will have to come from someone else.

I close with A history of the Doomsday Clock in 4 minutes from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

“It seemed the right time on the page ... it suited my eye.” That’s how Martyl Langsdorf responded when asked why the hands of the Doomsday Clock were placed at seven minutes to midnight back in 1947. Martyl, an artist married to a Manhattan Project engineer, was hired to design the Bulletin’s first magazine cover, which needed to convey scientists’ increasing concern about the management of nuclear weapons. Ultimately, she settled on a clock ticking toward midnight, intended as a metaphor for humanity’s proximity to nuclear apocalypse.

It would later become one of the world’s most recognizable symbols, observed closely by policymakers, scientists, and artists alike.

It’s fitting that in a male-dominated nuclear industry filled with the 20th century’s greatest minds, a female artist created the symbol that would elegantly communicate their concerns clearly to the public. Over its more than 75-year history, the clock continues to inspire films, books, musicians, and beyond.

In all, the clock has moved 25 times. In more recent years, the clock has moved in response to a variety of diplomatic and political events, negotiations over nuclear weapons, inaction on climate change, technological advancements, and biological weapon experimentation. In 2023, the clock was moved to 90 seconds to midnight, the closest to disaster it has ever been, reflecting increased concern over humanity’s response to its greatest threats.

And it's now one second closer.

Stay tuned for the final post of January 2025.

2024 in review from ABC, NBC, Vox, Google, and Time for New Year's Eve

Happy New Year's Eve! I say my farewells to 2024 beginning with ABC News summarizing The biggest news stories of the year: ABC News' 2024 year in review.

ABC News recaps the biggest headlines and moments of the year.

This video won out over the next one, 2024 Year in Review: Presidential election, Trump, drones, severe weather, brat summer, and more from NBC News because I liked the preview image more.

Rewinding 2024 with the ultimate mashup of the year’s major events.

The main omission the ABC News viewers noted was their video not mentioning the earthquake in New Jersey and New York. NBC News made up for it. Both videos also exemplified "It's not just news value that's driving it," which I shared most recently in Local news coverage of marching bands in the 2024 Macy's Parade for Thanksgiving. Both videos showcased Disney animated features, Moana 2 for ABC News and Inside Out 2 for NBC News. Inside Out 2 is the number one movie of the year, so NBC News would have been remiss in not mentioning it, but Moana 2 is still in theaters. Since ABC is a subsidiary of Disney, it's in the parent company's interest to promote it. The same is true of Wicked, an NBCUniversal production. Ah, capitalism and media consolidation!

Next, the video with the most comprehensive description, Vox recounting 2024, in 4 minutes.

Did you vote?
...
2024 saw over 60 elections worldwide, many of which were marked with controversy. It was undoubtedly a divisive year both within and along borders. The war in Ukraine is now in its third year. Syrian rebels toppled the Assad regime after years of fighting. South Korea erupted into chaos after the prime minister declared martial law and was subsequently impeached. In the United States, President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed VP Kamala Harris, who ultimately lost to Donald Trump.

Despite the tumultuous, seemingly never-ending wave of current events people still found escape and unity in the Olympics, Brat summer, and a rambunctious pygmy hippo.

2024 had much of the world voting for change. Onward, to 2025 where we will find out what it means.

Normally, the video description would have been enough for me to place this first, but I didn't want to give the re-election of convicted criminal Donald Trump and especially the assassination attempt any more attention than necessary.

I'm continuing with a retrospective that driven by the users, not filtered through professional expert news judgment, Google — Year in Search 2024, although it's still self-promotion in the corporation's interest.

This year, we're celebrating the Breakout Searches of 2024. From iconic performances, to history-making breakthroughs, see the moments that shaped our year in ways we didn't see coming.

That was uplifting in ways the other retrospectives were not, even the look back at celebrities who left us this year. Speaking of which, I'm closing out the videos with TIME's In Memoriam: A Tribute to Those We've Lost in 2024.

A tribute to some of the noteworthy people who died in 2024.

RIP, Jimmy Carter.

I conclude by linking to Jon Swift Roundup 2024, "The Best Posts of the Year, Chosen by the Bloggers Themselves" at Vagabond Scholar.  I submitted John Oliver examines Clarence Thomas and makes him an offer on 'Last Week Tonight', the most read entry of the year, and Batocchio linked to it. It makes for a good summary of the year as recorded by liberal bloggers.

That completes 2024's blogging. Stay tuned for the 2025 version of Some of my favorite bands at the Rose Parade for New Year's Day to begin next year.

The top TV shows of 2024 from TIME, The Hollywood Reporter, and WatchMojo

I concluded '2024 becomes the world's hottest year on record, fueling extreme weather events,' the year in climate and weather with the following maybe.

It's early enough that I might post an entry about the year's best TV shows today. Stay tuned to see if I do, followed by the overall year in review for New Year's Eve.

O.K., I'm doing it. Since Grace Randolph hasn't made a definitive best streaming series of the year video yet — watch, she'll upload one while I'm writing this or, worse yet, after I post it — I'm beginning with The 10 Best TV Shows of 2024 from TIME.

One of the greatest pleasures of the Peak TV era was that an excellent series could come from almost anywhere. Lifetime could greenlight the smart, satirical thriller You (which would become a hit for Netflix after failing to attract an audience on cable). The lyrical coming-of-age saga David Makes Man could find a home on OWN. TNT could serve up madcap Floridian crime soap Claws while BBC America made Killing Eve an obsession on this side of the Atlantic.

A few years into the industry’s contraction, and in the wake of writers’ and actors’ strikes in 2023, the television landscape looks a lot different.

Since TIME didn't even hint at this year's best TV shows in the video description, I'm listing them here:

1. Shogun
2. Industry
3. Say Nothing
4. Penelope
5. Fantasmas
6. Somebody Somewhere
7. Interview with the Vampire
8. The Sympathizer
9. Baby Reindeer
10. Pachinko

Not a bad list, although I hadn't heard of 3-5, Say Nothing, Penelope, and Fantasmas, before. Like TIME's top ten movies, this list reflects "reflects expert critical taste," which means it includes some obscure choices.

Next, THR Critics Pick the Best TV Shows of 2024 | THR News, which The Hollywood Reporter just uploaded this morning.

From an epic historical drama to a wild surrealist comedy, our TV screens took us on all sorts of thrilling and intriguing adventures in 2024. As we head into 2025, we're taking a look at some of The Hollywood Reporter's television critics' picks for the best TV shows of 2024.

"In no particular order," THR's picks are Shogun, Baby Reindeer, Ripley, Fantasmas, Shrinking, Hacks, Somebody Somewhere, and My Brilliant Friend. I'm much more familiar with the series on THR's list, which indicates their critics are more in tune with popular taste than TIME's.

Speaking of popular taste, I can't resist WatchMojo, which I've called "high-quality, well-researched clickbait," so I conclude with their Top 24 Best TV Shows of 2024.

From gripping dramas to hilarious comedies, 2024 was a stellar year for television. Join us as we count down the most captivating and innovative series that kept us glued to our screens. Whether you're into sci-fi, crime thrillers, or heartwarming stories, there's something for everyone on this list! Our countdown includes shows like "Industry," "Hazbin Hotel," "Dead Boy Detectives," "Heartstopper," "Ripley," and many more. We'll explore why these series stood out and what made them the best of 2024. Which show was your favorite? Let us know in the comments!

I knew a lot more of WatchMojo's list and even the one I didn't, Bad Monkey, looks like one I should know. In addition, TIME's and THR's choices Industry, Ripley, and The Sympathizer made WatchMojo's list below tenth. Speaking of which, here's WatchMojo's top ten.

1. Shogun
2. X-Men '97
3. Fallout
4. Arcane
5. The Penguin
6. Hacks
7. The Boys
8. Baby Reindeer
9. English Teacher
10. Agatha All Along

Looks like everyone agrees on Shogun and Baby Reindeer, making them favorites of both critics and the people. Who am I to disagree?

Stay tuned for a final year-end retrospectives through New Year's Eve.

Best and worst movies of 2024 from Beyond The Trailer, TIME, and WatchMojo

I finished 2024, another busy year in space, according to NASA, ESA, Reuters, and New Scientist by telling you, my readers, "Stay tuned for year-end retrospectives through New Year's Eve, continuing with the year in movies and TV for the Sunday entertainment feature." TV is too much for today, so I'm sticking to movies. I begin the final entertainment feature of the year with Grace Randolph of Beyond The Trailer's Top Ten Best Movies of 2024.

Top Ten Best Movies of 2024 today! Beyond The Trailer host Grace Randolph gives a review of her Top Ten Movies of 2024 including a breakdown as to why each one made the cut! Find out where Wicked, Deadpool & Wolverine, The Brutalist, Inside Out 2, Conclave, A Complete Unknown, Dune Part 2, Challengers, Nosferatu and Alien Romulus land on this list! And share your own Top Ten of 2024 now that you've seen some full movies and not just the trailers!

Here is Grace's top ten in one frame.


This is a good list, although I would have put Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and Twisters in my top ten instead of Challengers and Alien: Romulus.

For a list that reflects expert critical taste, I'm sharing The 10 Best Movies of 2024 from TIME Magazine.

This has been a difficult year. You may have been buffeted by anger you didn’t want to feel, and didn’t know how to productively process. Breeding grounds for misinformation—and its even more treacherous sibling, disinformation—have proliferated. AI is coming, supposedly to make our lives easier, but in reality it may just be taking our jobs. Sometimes it has seemed that soullessness has become the order of the day—as if having a soul were simply too much bother.

But as of right now, at least, most movies are made by human beings, and they are still one of the most extraordinary ways for humans to talk to one another. The conversation may seem one-sided. After all, a filmmaker makes the movie, and then you buy the ticket or pay to stream it. But if you care about movies at all, then surely there have been times you’ve gone so deep into a film that you’ve almost taken up residence within it—or, rather, it has taken up residence within you. This is why filmmakers do what they do. Some are deeply invested in capturing the texture of life that surrounds them, so that viewers in California or Iowa or New York will have some sense, say, of what it’s like to be a woman making her way alone in a densely populated, noisy, complicated city like Mumbai. For a filmmaker, even just asking the question, “What do women want?” can yield rich, pleasurable rewards. Asking what women need is even more dangerous. Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof has risked his life to do so; you can’t put more faith in the art form than that.

Making a film is more of a crapshoot than ever, especially if you’re hoping your work will be watched in theaters, on the big screen, rather than at home on the small one. But sometimes watching movies small is a necessity: unless you live within driving distance of a good art-house theater, some of the best movies of 2024 might not have come to a cinema near you. The 10 titles I share with you here are movies that have helped me through this fraught and sometimes confounding year. I hope you’ll find your way to at least some of them—and perhaps one or two or more of them will find a home in you.

The only movie on both TIME's list and Grace's is A Complete Unknown, although she has covered Anora, Babydoll, Emilia Perez, and Flow; they just didn't make her top ten.

WatchMojo has more popular taste than TIME, and the channel's Top 10 Best Movies of 2024 reflects that.

Lights, camera, action! We're diving into the most spectacular cinematic experiences of 2024 that redefined storytelling on the big screen. From epic sci-fi to intimate character studies, these films pushed boundaries and captured our imaginations in ways we never expected. Our countdown features incredible movies like "Dune: Part Two," "Challengers," "The Wild Robot," and more, showcasing the incredible diversity and creativity of modern cinema! What do you think was the best movie of 2024? Let us know in the comments.

WatchMojo's top ten is similar to Grace's with the substitutions of Sing, Sing, which wouldn't have qualified because of its release date, Anora, the one movie also on TIME's list, The Wild Robot, and The Substance for Deadpool & Wolverine, Alien: Romulus, A Complete Unknown, and Inside Out 2. I think cases can be made for all of them.

Follow over the jump for two worst lists.

2023 in review from Vox, Time, and ABC News

It's time for the first of two final retrospectives of 2023, this year's version of Vox, Time, and WatchMojo look back at 2022 with ABC News replacing WatchMojo. I begin with the most viewed, Vox replaying 2023, in 7 minutes.

The year’s already over? Let’s look back.
...
2023 was dominated by a few big stories: climate change making everything hotter; the Israel-Hamas war; blockbuster movies and concert tours. And during all the massive global shifts, celebrations, and devastation — life happened. Watch this video to remember the major events from this turbulent year.

I may have decided not to write an entertainment retrospective this year, but Vox had that covered in this video.

Vox gave short shrift to Trump's legal troubles, but Time's 2023: A Year In Review, the second most viewed of the three videos I'm sharing, gave it more attention.

Here's a look back on the most impactful events of 2023.

I close with 2023: A year in review by ABC News, which made the official end to the pandemic the focus of its opening.

From the ongoing war in Ukraine to the Israel-Gaza conflict, the world experienced many significant events in 2023.

The devastating wildfires in Hawaii, the missing Titan submersible, the coronation of King Charles III, the House GOP speakership — and much more in U.S. politics — here's a look back at some of the top stories of the year.

As soon as I heard Rosalynn Carter's eulogy, I knew that's where I wanted to end this post.

Stay tuned for a New Year's Eve retrospective followed by next year's versions of My favorite bands in the Rose Parade for New Year's Day and the reveal of my Saturn Awards votes on National Science Fiction Day to begin 2024.

TIME Earth Award winner Claire Vlases, CEO of the Year Sam Altman, Athlete of the Year Lionel Messi, plus bonus Padma Lakshmi

I closed Taylor Swift is Time's 2023 Person of the Year by noting "At least one of [the candidates for 2023's Person of the Year], Sam Altman, has won another accolade for CEO of the Year. I'm waiting to see if any of the others earn consolation prizes." They didn't, so it's time to follow through. Before I get to Altman, I'm sharing Youth Climate Activist Claire Vlases Accepts TIME Earth Award After Major Legal Victory.

Climate activist Claire Vlases received the Earth Award from TIME on Tuesday after the 20-year-old helped secure victory in a landmark climate case earlier this year.

Vlases is one of 16 young plaintiffs who sued Montana for violating their right to a clean environment. In August, a judge ruled that Montana must consider climate change effects when approving fossil fuel projects. The court declared that Montana’s laws promoting fossil fuels violated constitutional rights.

In the absence of TIME announcing its Heroes of the Year, although Swift could be that, too, I'll take Vlases and her fellow plaintiffs as suitable stand-ins. Congratulations to them for their victory on behalf of kids and the climate!

Now I'm sharing TIME CEO of the Year 2023 | Sam Altman.

It was a strange Thanksgiving for Sam Altman. Normally, the CEO of OpenAI flies home to St. Louis to visit family. But this time the holiday came after an existential struggle for control of a company that some believe holds the fate of humanity in its hands. Altman was weary. He went to his Napa Valley ranch for a hike, then returned to San Francisco to spend a few hours with one of the board members who had just fired and reinstated him in the span of five frantic days. He put his computer away for a few hours to cook vegetarian pasta, play loud music, and drink wine with his fiancé Oliver Mulherin. “This was a 10-out-of-10 crazy thing to live through,” Altman tells TIME on Nov. 30. “So I’m still just reeling from that.”

We’re speaking exactly one year after OpenAI released Chat-GPT, the most rapidly adopted tech product ever. The impact of the chatbot and its successor, GPT-4, was transformative—for the company and the world. “For many people,” Altman says, 2023 was “the year that they started taking AI seriously.” Born as a nonprofit research lab dedicated to building artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity, OpenAI became an $80 billion rocket ship. Altman emerged as one of the most powerful and venerated executives in the world, the public face and leading prophet of a technological revolution.

I think Altman does double duty as Innovator of the Year. Normally, I'd have given him first billing, but I realized I hadn't given Vlases and her fellow plaintiffs in Montana any attention at all, let alone what they deserved, so they got it instead. Priorities.

Follow over the jump for the videos honoring Lionel Messi and Padma Lakshmi.

Creators of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine and other Nobel Prize winners for an early Nobel Prize Day

A happy early celebration of Nobel Prize Day! I begin the observance with NBC News reporting Two scientists receive Nobel Prize in medicine for work on Covid-19 mRNA vaccine this past October.

Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman received the Nobel Prize in medicine for their work on the Covid-19 mRNA vaccine. The two found a way to create a vaccine that would get past the body’s defenses but still prompt the immune system to make antibodies to fight the disease. NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell shares more.

Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman won the Nobel Prize just days after How to Survive a Pandemic about the development of the COVID-19 vaccine won Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary. That's two expert recognitions of COVID-19 vaccines, which came from HIV research and can still result in an HIV vaccine — a technology going full-circle! It's also an early fulfillment of a prediction I made three years ago — "work on coronavirus is likely to win Nobel Prizes, whether in Chemistry or Medicine, about a decade from now. May we all live long enough to see it." It only took three years!

Follow over the jump for the rest of this year's Nobel Prize winners.

Taylor Swift is Time's 2023 Person of the Year

It's time for Time's Person of the Year for 2023. Watch Taylor Swift named Time’s 2023 Person of the Year on TODAY.

In a TODAY exclusive, Time editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs reveals their selection for the 2023 Person of the Year. "I don't think there's anyone who's moved so many people so well as Taylor Swift did," he says of the selection.

I chose that for the preview image, but it also served as a good explanation of why Time chose Swift. I guess Time can't be all DOOM all the time, either.

Sam Jacobs switched studios while staying at 30 Rock when he appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe to explain Why Time chose Taylor Swift as its Person of the Year.

Time's Sam Jacobs joins Morning Joe to discuss why the magazine chose Taylor Swift as its 2023 Person of the Year.

Jacobs said of the other contenders for Person of the Year that they personified "what this year showed...the costs and limits of hard power, which is why we selected someone who really demonstrates significant soft power..."* As examples of that soft power, Time's own video, Taylor Swift is TIME’s 2023 Person of the Year, showed the effect she has on her fans.

Since 1927, TIME has chosen a Person of the Year, the editors’ assessment of the individual who most shaped the headlines over the previous 12 months, for better or for worse.

As a tradition, Person of the Year springs from the Great Man Theory of history, a belief that individuals have the power to transform society. The selections over the years have tended to follow certain patterns. The person chosen has typically been a ruler over traditional domains of power. He—and yes, usually it has been a “he”—is very often a politician or a titan of industry. Fourteen U.S. Presidents, five leaders of Russia or the Soviet Union, and three Popes have all been recognized.

And yet the person whose singular influence was revealed throughout 2023 has held none of these roles—or anything remotely similar. Every year contains light and dark; 2023 was a year with significant shares of darkness. In a divided world, where too many institutions are failing, Taylor Swift found a way to transcend borders and be a source of light. No one else on the planet today can move so many people so well. Achieving this feat is something we often chalk up to the alignments of planets and fates, but giving too much credit to the stars ignores her skill and her power.

Taylor Swift is TIME’s 2023 Person of the Year.

I found all of these fan experiences moving and good examples of her soft power.

Congratulations to Swift for being named Person of the Year, but she's not done winning awards. Follow over the jump for Swift's Grammy nominations.

Doomsday Clock is now 90 seconds to midnight, the least remaining time ever — again

It's the time of year to update the Doomsday Clock. Watch The Doomsday Clock Is Closer to Catastrophe Than Ever Before from Time.

The Doomsday Clock, a symbolic tracker that represents the likelihood of human-made destruction, was updated Tuesday to 90 seconds to midnight—the closest to global catastrophe it’s ever been. It was the first time the clock had been updated since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.

Reuters explained the signficance of this event in What is the 'Doomsday Clock'?

Atomic scientists set the 'Doomsday Clock' in 2023 to 90 seconds to midnight – closer than ever before to the threat of complete annihilation of humanity. But what is the Doomsday Clock?

ABC News gave a historical perspective in Doomsday Clock: A look back.

Scientists revealed that the "Doomsday Clock" has been moved up to 90 seconds before midnight — the closest humanity has ever been to armageddon.

Here are past evaluations of how close we are to the end of the world.

The clock has been at 100 seconds to midnight since 2020, so moving the hands ten seconds closer is a big deal and bad news. I wish I could say I am surprised, but between the Russian invasion of Ukraine and 2022 being the fifth-warmest year on record, demonstrating that climate change remains a threat, the situation has become more dangerous. While the Reuters video showed clips related to the pandemic, I don't think it factored much into the decision to move the hands closer to midnight. On the other hand, artificial intelligence, depicted as a Boston Dynamics robot "dog" instead of the AI art and writing that is making news, may be causing more anxiety than I think the technology deserves, although I think I should still blog about the latest developments in mimicking human creativity. Just the same, this is one of the rare times when I use the doom label seriously.

So ends January 2023's blogging. Stay tuned for the first post of February.

Vox, Time, and WatchMojo look back at 2022

It's nearing the end of the year, so it's time, pun intended, for me to post the 2022 version of Vox, TODAY, and ABC News look back at 2021. I begin, as I did last year, with Vox recapping 2022, in 7 minutes.

Running up that hill with 8 billion people.
...
In 2022, the world population crossed 8 billion people — and we felt the scale of this monumental milestone in hundreds of ways. After over two years of lockdowns and quarantines, people eagerly restarted their lives, but there were certainly growing pains. Weddings and travel skyrocketed, but so did lost luggage and global inflation rates. Taylor Swift broke Ticketmaster. Cryptocurrency was headed toward a great year until it really, really wasn’t. 2022 tested the world population as we tested out life in a new phase of the pandemic.

Russia invaded Ukraine, and aid relief flooded into the war-torn country. Refugees were welcomed into surrounding countries, and those who stayed behind inspired people around the world. Global protests cried out for justice in Iran. Football teams stood up for migrant workers and the LGBTQ+ community at the World Cup. Cuba legalized same-sex marriage. The world froze for a moment when England’s longest-reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, died. And we all watched a lot of TikTok.

As we head into 2023, take a moment to look back at the events that defined this year.

The other year in review videos I watched did not even mention the human population passing 8 billion, yet Vox made it the first and organizing story. This is yet another reason I subscribe to Vox on YouTube and why it's one of my favorite sources for news and analysis.

Time Magazine had a more conventional take in 2022: A Year In Review.

Following years of uncertainty—and a global pandemic that has proven to be one of the most challenging events in history—we forged on, prepared to tackle what lay ahead. And as we continued to extract the possible from the impossible, this year taught us, above all, that our voices—no matter how big or small—can change the world.

That's a much more conventional year in review than Vox's, as is WatchMojo's Top 10 Breaking News Stories of 2022.

These events were the most significant, culture-shifting, and/or shocking moments from 2022. For this list, we’ll be looking at the most impactful news items from the year. Our countdown includes Elon Musk Acquires Twitter, Johnny Depp & Amber Heard Trial, The Death of Queen Elizabeth II, and more!

I have three comments on this video. First, it did a good job of selecting and explaining its top ten stories. Second, that gave me more insight into the Depp and Heard civil trial, which I dismissed by writing "'SNL' also has 'I can't be all DOOM all the time' moods and needed some escapism" in Weekend Update compares this week's headlines to 'Mad Max' on last night's 'SNL'. It turned out to be a more significant story than I thought at the time and yet another example of a future blogging topic. Finally, this is yet another example of WatchMojo producing "high-quality, well-researched clickbait" that is worth sharing.

I close by returning to Time telling its viewers to Watch: A Tribute to Those We’ve Lost in 2022.

As 2022 comes to a close, we take a moment to reflect on Sidney Poitier, Olivia Newton-John, Queen Elizabeth II, and many more who left us in the past year.

R.I.P.

Stay tuned for one final retrospective on New Year's Eve.

Aaron Judge, Time's 2022 Athlete of the Year

It's time to finish my series about Time's People of the Year with Aaron Judge: TIME Athlete of the Year 2022.

When Aaron Judge stood in the Yankee Stadium batter’s box in late September, he couldn’t quite shake the silence. Some 45,000 voices hushed, as if they were at a basilica, not a ball field. As fans anticipated a landmark moment in sports—the breaking of a revered home-run record—they refused to peep as the pitcher wound up.

“I never noticed the crowd until they stopped cheering, which was one of the craziest things in my career,” says Judge, 30, sitting in the leafy courtyard of his luxury New York City apartment building, about a week after the end of a monumental campaign in which he set a new American League home-run mark, with 62. “That’s when I started to kind of realize, ‘Oh boy, there’s something special going on here.’”

Judge's story about gum serves as a good example of the usefulness of superstitions, as irrational as they are. Then again, humans are not completely rational, so we need to be able to use our irrationality.

TIME recorded a second video, How to Hit a Home-run like Aaron Judge.

Now, Judge, TIME's 2022 Athlete of the Year, is sharing some of his best tips for knocking home-runs out of the park.

Nice apartment building! Also, good advice, except I played football not baseball in high school and I'm far too old to ever use it. May someone younger pay heed to Judge's coaching.

I conclude with Judge's TIME cover.


That's it for this series. Stay tuned for a post celebrating Winter Solstice and Yule tomorrow.

Previous posts about Time's People of the Year

• Volodymyr Zelenskyy named Time's Person of the Year for 2022
• The Women of Iran are Time's Heroes of the Year for 2022
• Time introduces the 2022 Nobel Prize winners plus the Innovator of the Year for Nobel Prize Day
• Blackpink is Time's Entertainer of the Year for 2022
• Meet Donnel Baird, Time Magazine's first-ever Dreamer of the Year
• Michelle Yeoh is Time's 2022 Icon of the Year

Michelle Yeoh is Time's 2022 Icon of the Year

After lots of buildup, I'm finally posting about Michelle Yeoh: TIME Icon of the Year 2022.

Since making her debut in Hong Kong action films in the mid-’80s, the now 60-year-old Michelle Yeoh has battled Jet Li in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, flung herself onto a moving car driven by Jackie Chan in Supercop, and jumped off a skyscraper with Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond in Tomorrow Never Dies. She had major roles in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Memoirs of a Geisha; and Crazy Rich Asians. She’s done Marvel, Star Trek, Kung Fu Panda, Minions—Avatar, Transformers, and The Witcher are next. But, until Everything Everywhere All at Once, which premiered in March, she had never been No. 1 on a Hollywood call sheet.

She’s clear about why: Asian actors have long been given stereotypical or inconsequential roles, and rarely top billing. “It shouldn’t be about my race, but it has been a battle,” she says, golden baubles on her jacket clanging as she mimics elbowing her way through a crowd. “At least let me try.”

Which is why the role of Evelyn Wang in Everything Everywhere All at Once was such a revelation. In the hit art-house film directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (known as Daniels), Yeoh is an overworked, over-burdened immigrant wife and mother facing an IRS audit of the family laundromat when, suddenly, everything changes. She learns that there are multiple versions of the universe, and they’re all facing a threat that only she can stop—if she can figure out how to jump between different realities and pick up skills possessed by different versions of herself. Yeoh has the opportunity to showcase all of her talents—as a martial artist but also, in portraying Evelyn’s deep love for her family, even as she struggles to communicate with them, her abilities as a dramatic actor. It’s a shift for the actor, who toggles between wacky sequences, like a world where humans have hot dogs for fingers, and intimate moments. “She usually plays masters, tough fighters,” says Jet Li. “The action—I know she can do it. But really acting from the heart, believing the part, makes the movie very special.”

Congratulations! It's about time Yeoh got the recognition she deserves. Now to see if she wins at the Golden Globes and Critics' Choice Awards and gets an Oscar nomination for "Everything Everywhere All at Once."

Yeoh had more to say about her stunt work in The Biggest Lesson Michelle Yeoh Learned Early in Her Career in Hong Kong.

Before Michelle Yeoh became a celebrated Hollywood star, she was an action star in the rough-and-tumble world of Hong Kong action movies.

Those roles were incredibly physically demanding and could even be dangerous, she recalled Thursday at TIME’s 2022 Person of the Year reception in New York City. The experience taught her to take risks and not be afraid of failure. And she credits that for her success now.

I was thrilled to see Yeoh in the first two episodes of "Star Trek: Discovery" and was disappointed to watch her prime universe version die. However, I was thrilled enough to see her Mirror Universe version appear and return to the series, enough so to vote for her in Best Guest-Starring Performance on Television at the Saturn Awards. I was even more impressed to watch her do her own stunts in a fight scene. I don't care if its for show; I would not ever want to get in a fight with her, even if I'm twice her size!

Follow over the jump for my commentary on the categories won by "Everything Everywhere All at Once" at the Saturn Awards.

Meet Donnel Baird, Time Magazine's first-ever Dreamer of the Year

I'm postponing blogging about Time Magazine's Icon and Athlete of the Year because Time uploaded Meet the First-Ever Dreamer of the Year yesterday.

Meet the First-Ever Dreamer of the Year: Donnel Baird, CEO of BlocPower. Donnel's story demonstrates how the pursuit of one dream can empower the dreams of thousands. His company BlocPower, a clean energy tech company generating climate resilience and community wealth, is changing lives one building at a time.

Hey, look, another Crazy Eddie! I approve!

While this video is the first time I've heard of Donnel Baird, it isn't his first time being covered by the media. The Weather Channel told his story in Faces of Change: Donnel Baird almost two years ago.

Learn about Donnel Baird's tech start-up, which replaces old, wasteful heating systems with modern, green technology.

I appreciate showing both the graphic of how much of global carbon dioxide emissions come from heating buildings and the heat pump installed at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church. Numbers, technology, and solutions — yay!

Time covered Baird earlier this year as one of the guests in Sara Menker and Donnel Baird: Climate Change Is a Crisis, But It's Solvable.

The world is facing a climate crisis, and parts of the U.S. energy system are collapsing at this very moment, ecopreneurs Sara Menker and Donnel Baird warned the audience at the TIME 100 Summit during a panel discussion moderated by Simon Mulcahy, the President of Sustainability at TIME.

Ecopreneur — now that's a word that I should not only read more often, but use more often. Thanks, Time, for expanding my vocabulary.

I'm looking forward to seeing future Dreamers of the Year. In the meantime, stay tuned for Time Magazine's Icon of the Year. Speaking of Time, it's time to grade final exams. See you tomorrow!

Blackpink is Time's Entertainer of the Year for 2022

Finally, after all the promising, I'm following through on blogging about Time Magazine's Entertainer of the Year. Watch Blackpink: TIME Entertainer of the Year 2022.

Normal as they may be, their 2022 has been anything but. They appeared at the VMAs in August, performing their hit single “Pink Venom,” and onstage during their latest blockbuster world tour, which kicked off in October and will hit 27 cities over nine months. Shows sold out in minutes and were attended by tens of thousands of fans, including celebrities like Selena Gomez and Usher. The foursome released its highly anticipated second studio album, Born Pink, in September, which notched a record as the best-selling album by a Korean girl group, with over 2 million album sales. It continues to dominate on YouTube, where Blackpink is the biggest musical act with over 83 million subscribers.

Congratulations to Blackpink for this honor. Not only are they Entertainers of the Year, their video is the most viewed, beating Volodymyr Zelenskyy's for Person of the Year. Once again, Americans and others priorities are on display. That's the good news. The bad news is that, unlike Olivia Rodrigo, 2021's Entertainer of the Year, Blackpink has no Grammy nominations. They did have two People's Choice Award nominations for The Group of 2022 and The Music Video of 2022, but they lost the first to BTS — at least another K-Pop group won — and the second to "Anti-Hero" by Taylor Swift. Both of the winners have Grammy nominations. Maybe next year.

As consolation, I'm sharing the nominated video, BLACKPINK - ‘Pink Venom’ M/V.


I plan on blogging about the actual Grammy nominees later. In the meantime, stay tuned for the Icon and Athlete of the Year to close out this series.

I leave my readers with Blackpink's Time cover.

Time introduces the 2022 Nobel Prize winners plus the Innovator of the Year for Nobel Prize Day

As I promised twice, I'm covering the Innovator of the Year for Nobel Prize Day today, but I'm saving that for after I feature the this year's prize winners themselves. Watch Meet the 2022 Nobel Prize Winners from Time Magazine.

The Peace Prize is one of six awards established by Swedish chemist (and inventor of dynamite) Alfred Nobel in 1895. The prize is considered the most expansive in its recognition, given that it awards people “who have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.”

As I wrote last year, "The Peace Prize recipients generally piss people off and I'm O.K. with that as long they piss off the right people. I think this year's prize qualifies." So does this year's and I'm O.K. with that.

If one counted the categories carefully in the first video, one would have noticed Time Magazine only covered five, the ones actually created by Alfred Nobel himself. The sixth prize recognizes economics; it was created decades later by the Bank of Sweden, named in honor of Nobel, and is administered by the Nobel Foundation.* The Economic Times reported on the announcement in Former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke along with two academics awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Economics.

Douglas W. Diamond, economist at the University of Chicago, and Philip H. Dybvig at Washington University in St. Louis won the prize alongside Mr Bernanke for the role banks play during financial turmoil.

While I had fun with Bernanke when he was Chairman of the Federal Reserve, calling him Helicopter Ben, I have the same opinion of his winning this award that I did when Robert Shiller won the economics prize in 2013 — he deserves it and it's about time.

Speaking of time, pun intended, here is the recognition I've been telegraphing for two days: The James Webb Telescope Team: TIME Innovator of the Year 2022, which might contribute to future Nobel prizes.

The James Webb telescope has come to represent something larger and grander than all of us. The long effort to get the spacecraft built, the mission it was assigned—searching for clues to the very origins of the universe—have worked a certain transcendent good. From the hands of a team of thousands of researchers, engineers, and factory-line workers came a ship that, if it doesn’t exactly kick open the doors to the secrets of the cosmos, at least parts the curtain. “This beautiful machine,” says senior project scientist John Mather, “has worked in every way that it was supposed to work.”

Consider this a down payment on the entry about the James Webb Space Telescope I promised in 2021 in space from NASA, ESA, and Reuters. I expect to write the rest of it when I recap the year in space for 2022. In the meantime, congratulations to all the winners and stay tuned for the Entertainers of the Year as the Sunday entertainment feature.

*A more literal translation of Sveriges Riksbank is Swedish Royal Bank, but the official translation is Bank of Sweden, so I'm going with that.

The Women of Iran are Time's Heroes of the Year for 2022

After recognizing Volodymyr Zelenskyy named Time's Person of the Year for 2022 yesterday, it's time, pun intended, to acknowledge the Women of Iran: TIME Heroes of the Year 2022.

Younger women are now in the streets. The movement they’re leading is educated, liberal, secular, raised on higher expectations, and desperate for normality: college and foreign travel, decent jobs, rule of law, access to the Apple Store, a meaningful role in politics, the freedom to say and wear whatever. They are quite unlike those who came before them; sometimes they feel more like transnational Gen Z than Iranians: they are vegans, they de-Islamicize their names, they don’t want children. I’ve often wondered what has made them so rebellious, because their ferocious character was evident well before 22-year-old Mahsa (Jina) Amini, arrested at a metro station by the morality police who enforce the dress code, died after being held in their custody on Sept. 16, setting off the most sustained uprising in the 43-year history of the Islamic Republic. The average age of arrested protesters is notably low—Iranian officials estimate as young as 15. I can only conclude that when a generation’s aspirations for freedom appear tantalizingly within reach, the more humiliating the remaining restrictions seem, and the less daunting the final stretch of resistance feels.

Just like Vaccine scientists being named Time Magazine's Heroes of the Year, the women of Iran were being considered for Persons of the Year, but earned this recognition instead. I think it makes for an apt and fitting consolation prize.

Time Magazine uploaded a second video about this honor, Angelina Jolie Interviews Activist Roya Piraei.

TIME Contributing Editor Angelina Jolie interviews activist Roya Piraei, whose mother, Minoo Majidi, was was killed in Iran in September. Thousands continue to protest the repressive regime there. The protests began in September, when 22-year-old Mahsa (Jina) Amini died in police custody, after being arrested for not wearing her hijab properly.

The Women of Iran are TIME's 2022 Heroes of the Year.

I found that moving and personalized the movement well. Also, I didn't know that Angelina Jolie is a contributing editor for Time. It's always a good day when I learn something new.

I plan to return tomorrow with the Innovator of the Year for Nobel Prize Day tomorrow and Entertainers of the Year as the Sunday entertainment feature. Stay tuned. In the meantime, here is the Time Magazine cover image for Heroes of the Year.