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This year, Slate approached the news in many ways: head-on, confronting the realities of a second Trump administration, and from unique, at times playful, angles.

Many of our top articles covered the tumult of this first year of the Trump presidency—from the Department of Government Efficiency’s purge to the renewed interest in the president’s connection to Jeffrey Epstein. However, readers were also hungry for other stories, and we delivered with ambitious features and unique arguments alike. Some of our best stories of the year explored cultural phenomena, including the dearth of office happy hours, the mansions popping up everywhere, and the notorious scam texts that plague us all. We appreciated your readership in this tumultuous year and look forward to bringing you more fun larks and bold work in 2026. Here are Slate’s top 2025 stories.

1. How Giant White Houses Took Over America
They’re huge. They’re unsightly. They’re everywhere. When one went up next door, Slate writer Dan Kois went on a quest to understand the 5,600-square-foot architectural curiosity.
By Dan Kois, March 6

2. The Happiest Place on Earth
According to the World Happiness Report—the annual, much-covered study—Finland reigns supreme, and has for the past eight years. Slate contributor Imogen West-Knights spent a beautiful, partly nude week there to understand its secret.
By Imogen West-Knights, Aug. 27 

3. Unhappy Hour
No one goes to happy hour after work anymore. And the reason why is grim.
By Luke Winkie, May 29

4. How Katy Perry Came Undone
How did Katy Perry lose the plot? Slate’s Scaachi Koul bravely took on the task of attending a stop on Perry’s “Lifetimes” tour, where it became obvious why America turned on her.
By Scaachi Koul, June 4

5. There’s Something Very Dark Happening to Millennials and Gen Z Adults
Millennials are dying at an alarming rate. Mortality experts have a few ideas as to why—and why the trend may get worse under Trump.
By Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, Andrew Stokes, and Jacob Bor, Aug. 20

6. Those Dire Wolves Aren’t an Amazing Scientific Breakthrough. They’re a Disturbing Symbol of Where We’re Heading.
In April, the biotechnology company Colossal Biosciences revealed, with much fanfare, that they had created a trio of white wolf hybrids. Riley Black argues we shouldn’t be celebrating “de-extinction,” but rather focusing on the species that are currently in danger.
By Riley Black, April 10

7. I Work in the Office Carrying Out the Government Purge. Here’s What I Want You to Know.
Earlier this year, when DOGE started gutting government offices, it enlisted the help of the Office of Personnel Management. A pseudonymous OPM employee wrote about how Elon Musk and DOGE’s “Fork” resignation offers were destroying them, too.
By Annie Porter, Feb. 7

8. Bad Brains
The world’s deadliest addiction is popping up on brain scans, and it’s not even a drug. As part of Slate’s Revenge Week, a Yale psychiatrist explained the brain on revenge.
By James Kimmel Jr., July 14 

9. I Responded to One of the Spam Texts From a “Recruiter”—Then Took the Job. It Got Weirder Than I Could Have Imagined.
Anyone with a cellphone has been propositioned at least once by a recruiter with a great offer to earn extra money, and with very little required of you. But what do these people want—and can you actually get paid? Slate writer Alexander Sammon decided to find out for himself.
By Alexander Sammon, Aug. 4

10. I Was Kamala Harris’ Videographer. I Wish I Could Show You What I’ve Seen.
Over the past few years, as the official videographer and director of video to Vice President Kamala Harris, Azza Cohen traveled the world with her, watching her navigate the White House and the world stage. Along the way, she witnessed Harris’ impact, and it began to change her.
By Azza Cohen, Jan. 20 

Honorable Mentions

Lost Vegas
Las Vegas is in trouble: Tourism has tanked, workers are scrambling for shifts, and casinos—financed by new, more ravenous entities—have made some dark “adjustments” to keep up with the times. Slate’s Luke Winkie, long a devotee of the destination city many love to hate, traveled to the town recently and left with his own theory for what’s happening.
By Luke Winkie, Nov. 18

I Thought ChatGPT Was Killing My Students’ Skills. It’s Killing Something More Important Than That.
All of us insist on the life-and-death importance of a thing called “education.” But there’s no agreement on what that thing is.
By Phil Christman, May 14

The Car That Explains America
Alexander Sammon drove an electric Hummer on some of the nation’s most dangerous roads in Florida. Along the way, he explained how the very good intentions behind these massive zero-emissions trucks explain our national dysfunction better than anything else on wheels.
By Alexander Sammon, June 22

How America Got Its Baby Back, Baby Back, Baby Back
Despite other casual restaurants failing, Chili’s is bigger than ever. Slate’s Dan Kois traveled to the company’s test kitchen in Dallas and to Chili’s locations around the country to find out how the chain pulled off the impossible in 2025.
By Dan Kois, Aug. 11

The Curious Case of the Pygmy Nuthatch
Rarely has a movie gotten so many things wrong and in such quick succession as in one climactic scene in Charlie’s Angels (2000), in a sequence that has haunted birders for decades. Slate’s Forrest Wickman explains in detail what went wrong.
By Forrest Wickman, May 11

Fake Oxford
Three kids thought they got the college acceptance of their dreams. When they got to school, they found something far different.
By Josh Levin, Sept. 23


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The Case of the Disappearing Facelifts

The Most Popular Stories of 2025

One of the Most Absurd Changes to Air Travel Has Become So Common You Barely Even Notice It. You Should.
It used to be that the class delineator in airplane cabins was first class vs. everyone else. That’s changed, and now where you end up stuck on the plane is the most conspicuous sign of what we’ve all lost.
By Alex Kirshner, Oct. 9

The Menagerie Lurking in Rural America
Writer Sam Myers grew up in Ohio, and lived near the 2011 Zanesville massacre, in which tigers, lions, and bears escaped from a man’s private collection and were shot by the police. He traveled to an animal auction in Nelson, Nebraska, to report on how things have changed in the exotic animal trade since.
By Sam Myers, July 8

I’ve Told the Story About Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein for Years
Early one Sunday, when Jack O’Donnell was the president of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, Donald Trump and his friend Jeffrey Epstein arrived at the casino unannounced, bringing guests too young to be there. O’Donnell recounts his experience and how the interest in the story has been renewed given recent events.
By Jack O’Donnell, July 29

The 25 Greatest Picture Books of the Past 25 Years
Children’s literature is not the same as when we were little. In many ways, it’s better.
By Dan Kois and Rebecca Onion, Sept. 22