The Reckoning of the Year 2025

A Chronicle

I. The Gate

The year opened with violence.

On the first day of January, a man drove a rented truck into crowds on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Fourteen dead. He claimed allegiance to the Islamic State.

On the seventh, fire came to Los Angeles. The Santa Ana winds carried it through Pacific Palisades and Altadena. Thirty dead. Sixteen thousand structures destroyed. It burned for a month.

On the twentieth, Donald Trump took the oath of office for the second time—the oldest president ever inaugurated, the second to return after electoral defeat. He signed dozens of executive orders on his first day. The administration promised the largest deportation operation in American history, a sealed border, and tariffs on the world.

In Ireland, Storm Éowyn tore across the country. A rare nationwide red weather warning. Widespread destruction.

The year had announced its character.

II. The Powers Shift

Leadership changed across the world.

In Germany, elections brought a new coalition after months of political crisis. In Canada, a new prime minister took office amid economic anxiety and tensions with Washington. In Nepal, Gen Z-led protests forced the resignation of Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli. In several African nations, coups reshuffled governments.

Hungary withdrew from the International Criminal Court in April—a gesture toward sovereignty, its government said; an escape from accountability, critics replied.

In July, the Dalai Lama confirmed that his lineage would continue through reincarnation. Beijing immediately countered: the next Dalai Lama must be born in China and approved by the Communist Party. The succession of an eighty-nine-year-old monk became a geopolitical contest.

And in Rome, the papal throne itself changed hands.

III. The Border

The new American administration moved quickly on immigration.

Raids began within days of the inauguration. Immigration agents operated in cities across the country—farms, restaurants, courthouses, apartment complexes. The National Guard deployed to Chicago and Los Angeles. Marines went to the border. In April, more than ten thousand active-duty troops were ordered to assist in sealing the southern boundary.

The administration's account: more than 622,000 deportations; 1.9 million self-deportations; fentanyl trafficking at the border cut by half; a focus on criminal aliens, seventy percent of those arrested having been charged or convicted of crimes in the United States.

The counter-account: families separated after decades of residence; people detained at green card interviews; citizens caught up in raids; a farmworker who fell thirty feet during an operation and died; protests met with force; a federal judge's order against racial profiling overturned by the Supreme Court.

Protests erupted in Los Angeles in June. The president federalized the California National Guard over the governor's objection. Demonstrations spread to dozens of cities. In San Francisco, an ICE vehicle struck protesters. In Alameda in October, officers opened fire on a vehicle accelerating toward a barricade.

The immigrant population of the country declined for the first time in half a century.

IV. The Eastern War

The war in Ukraine entered its fourth year.

Russia intensified missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian cities. Civilian casualties mounted. Infrastructure crumbled. Russian forces advanced slowly—less than one percent of additional Ukrainian territory gained over the course of the year—at a cost estimated at a thousand soldiers per day.

In March, Russia reclaimed its Kursk province, seized by Ukraine in a surprise offensive the previous summer.

In June, Ukraine launched Operation Spiderweb. Drones deployed from trucks covertly positioned on Russian territory struck five air bases deep inside the country. Ten aircraft destroyed. It did not alter the war's trajectory.

The diplomatic landscape shifted. In February, the Ukrainian president visited Washington. The meeting in the Oval Office became a public confrontation. "You don't have the cards," Trump told Zelensky before the cameras. A planned press conference was canceled. In August, Trump met Putin in Alaska. The summit ended early, each side accusing the other of bad faith. Sanctions followed. Negotiations continued through intermediaries.

By autumn, a draft peace framework had emerged. Ukraine's allies considered it favorable to Moscow. The fighting continued regardless.

V. The Forgotten War

Sudan became the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The world largely did not notice.

The civil war—the Sudanese Armed Forces against the Rapid Support Forces—had begun in April 2023. By 2025, it had killed an estimated 150,000 people. More than twelve million were displaced, the largest and fastest displacement crisis ever recorded. Half the country's population faced severe hunger. Famine was confirmed in at least ten areas.

In October, El Fasher fell to the RSF after an eighteen-month siege. Aid had not entered the city for months. People ate peanut shells. When the city fell, there were massacres. Satellite imagery showed blood pooled in the sand. Mass graves visible from space.

Both sides were accused of atrocities. The RSF faced allegations of genocide against non-Arab communities in Darfur. The United States formally used the word genocide.

The UN called it the worst humanitarian year on record. Funding fell short. Aid workers were attacked.

"The difference between Sudan and Gaza," the UN's former humanitarian chief had said, "is that in Sudan, the international community is indifferent."

VI. The Burning of the Levant

In January, a ceasefire was reached in Gaza under American pressure. Hostages were released. Aid flowed. The guns paused.

The wider region did not stabilize.

In June, Israel struck Iran's nuclear program—facilities and personnel targeted in a major assault. Iran retaliated with missile strikes on Israeli cities.

The United States intervened. Operation Midnight Hammer: bunker-busting bombs on Iranian nuclear sites. "Completely and totally obliterated," Trump declared.

A ceasefire between Israel and Iran followed. In September, the Israeli prime minister visited Washington. A twenty-point peace framework was announced.

The Houthis in Yemen continued attacks on shipping. American strikes continued in response. The region remained on edge.

VII. The Caribbean and the Sea

The United States extended military operations into new theaters.

In the Caribbean and Pacific, naval forces conducted strikes against vessels suspected of drug trafficking. Washington accused Venezuela's president of running a cartel. Approximately one hundred people were killed in operations whose legality was disputed. In December, the administration announced a "complete blockade" of sanctioned oil tankers traveling to or from Venezuela.

Caracas called it pretext for regime change.

In the South China Sea, confrontation between China and the Philippines intensified.

China claims nearly the entire sea. A 2016 international tribunal ruled those claims unlawful. China ignored the ruling.

Throughout 2025, Chinese coast guard vessels rammed Philippine ships, fired water cannons at fishermen, cut anchor lines, and harassed resupply missions. In August, near Scarborough Shoal, a Chinese coast guard ship and a Chinese navy destroyer collided with each other while chasing a Philippine patrol vessel. The coast guard ship was severely damaged. At least two Chinese sailors were believed killed, though Beijing never confirmed it.

In October, the United States and the Philippines announced a joint task force to "reestablish deterrence." In December, Chinese vessels attacked Filipino fishing boats with water cannons, injuring three. Beijing declared a portion of contested waters a nature reserve and deployed a floating barrier at Scarborough Shoal.

The confrontations multiplied. No shots were fired between nations. The question was how long that would last.

VIII. The War of Goods

Trump had promised tariffs. He delivered them.

In April, a ten percent tariff was imposed on goods from nearly every country. Then came higher "reciprocal" tariffs on specific trading partners. Steel and aluminum reached fifty percent. Tariffs on Chinese goods spiked to 145 percent before being partially rolled back. The stock market crashed in April, then recovered, then wobbled.

China retaliated by restricting exports of rare-earth minerals essential for electronics, vehicles, and weapons. Beijing controlled sixty percent of global rare-earth mining and ninety percent of refining. The theoretical vulnerability became actual.

The European Union prepared countermeasures targeting ninety-three billion euros in American goods. Negotiations continued. In July, Trump announced thirty percent tariffs on EU goods; Brussels suspended retaliation to keep talks alive.

Courts ruled some tariffs exceeded presidential authority. The administration appealed. By year's end, the Supreme Court was hearing the case.

In October, Trump and Xi met in South Korea. A partial deal: reduced tariffs on Chinese goods, Chinese purchases of American agricultural products, eased access to rare earths.

Economists estimated the tariffs added roughly $1,200 in costs per American household. Global trade continued to grow—but the rules-based system built over decades was under strain.

IX. The Year of Political Violence

The pattern of political violence in the United States continued.

In April, a man set fire to the Pennsylvania governor's residence in Harrisburg. Governor Josh Shapiro and his family, celebrating Passover, fled into the night. The suspect said he harbored hatred for Shapiro and referenced the war in Gaza. Shapiro is Jewish.

In June, a man impersonating a police officer went to the homes of two Minnesota state legislators before dawn. He shot State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette; both survived. He killed State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark. In his car, police found a list of sixty-seven targets: Democratic politicians, abortion providers, activists. He was charged with murder.

In August, a gunman opened fire at a Catholic church in Minneapolis during a school event. Two children killed, twenty-one wounded.

In September, Charlie Kirk—founder of Turning Point USA, a conservative activist organization, and a Trump ally—was shot and killed while speaking at Utah Valley University. The gunman, twenty-two years old, fired from a rooftop. He surrendered the following day. Prosecutors announced they would seek the death penalty.

The administration condemned the killing and announced measures against those seen as celebrating it. Antifa was designated a domestic terrorist organization. The State Department said it would penalize foreigners who praised or trivialized Kirk's death. More than six hundred people were fired from jobs for social media comments, according to a Reuters investigation. Visas were revoked. Florida's education commissioner warned teachers could lose licenses for "disgusting" statements.

In December, a gunman opened fire at Brown University, killing two students and injuring nine.

In December, at Bondi Beach in Sydney, a gunman attacked a Hanukkah celebration. Sixteen killed, including a Holocaust survivor and a ten-year-old child. Australian authorities called it terrorism.

X. The Passing

Death came for those who had shaped earlier eras.

In January: David Lynch, filmmaker, seventy-eight. Marianne Faithfull, singer, seventy-eight. Jean-Marie Le Pen, French far-right founder, ninety-six.

In February: Gene Hackman, actor, ninety-five, found dead alongside his wife in their home. The Aga Khan IV, spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims, eighty-eight.

In April: Pope Francis, eighty-eight. The first Latin American pope, known for his humility and focus on the poor, his critiques of capitalism and climate inaction. More than 250,000 attended his funeral.

From the conclave: Leo XIV. Robert Francis Prevost, born in Chicago, a former missionary in Peru. The first American pope.

In May: José "Pepe" Mujica, Uruguay's former president, known for giving away most of his salary and living on a small farm, eighty-nine.

In October: Jane Goodall, primatologist, who changed humanity's understanding of its place among animals, ninety-one. Diane Keaton, actor, seventy-nine.

In November: Ozzy Osbourne, seventy-six.

In December: Dick Cheney, former vice president, eighty-four. Jim Lovell, astronaut who circled the moon but never landed, ninety-seven. Tom Stoppard, playwright, eighty-eight. Jimmy Cliff, reggae musician, eighty-one.

XI. The Burning World

The climate ledger.

Hurricane Melissa struck the Caribbean—Jamaica devastated, Haiti and Cuba flooded. One of the most powerful storms recorded in those waters. In the Philippines, three typhoons in succession: more than two hundred dead. Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Indonesia—floods and storms claimed hundreds more.

The Mediterranean coast of France experienced its worst fire in fifty years. The Grand Canyon's North Rim closed for the season. In Hong Kong, an apartment fire burned for forty hours; more than 160 dead, blamed on substandard construction.

At the end of November, Tesla shareholders approved a compensation package for Elon Musk potentially worth one trillion dollars over the next decade.

And yet.

For the first time, wind and solar combined generated more electricity globally than coal. Solar, one percent of global electricity a decade ago, reached nine percent. China's emissions may have peaked. Denmark committed to eighty-two percent emissions cuts by 2035. New marine sanctuaries were established across the Pacific and Atlantic.

The warming continued. So did the effort to reverse it.

XII. The Machines

Spending on artificial intelligence reached $1.5 trillion in 2025.

Nvidia's market value briefly exceeded five trillion dollars. The technology wrote code, drafted documents, generated images indistinguishable from photographs, held conversations.

Companies cited AI as justification for layoffs. Copyright lawsuits multiplied. Concerns about misinformation intensified. In California, the parents of a teenager who killed himself sued OpenAI, alleging its chatbot had encouraged his suicide. The company said it had strengthened parental controls. California enacted legislation regulating chatbots.

The machines did not pause. The questions they raised—about labor, about truth, about consciousness—pressed harder.

XIII. Risings and Records

Across the world, young people mobilized.

In Nepal, protests brought down a prime minister. In Peru, Madagascar, Morocco, Tanzania, demonstrators challenged corruption and demanded accountability. Some won concessions. Others faced prosecution—more than two thousand in Morocco alone.

In sport: Inter Miami, led by Lionel Messi, won the MLS Cup. India won its first Women's Cricket World Cup.

In space: Axiom Mission 4 carried the first Polish and Indian astronauts in decades to the International Space Station.

In Paris, on October 19, three men in workers' vests walked into the Louvre with a furniture ladder. They smashed cases in the Apollo Gallery and took crown jewels worth eighty-eight million euros. They fled on scooters. One dropped a diamond-encrusted crown on the street. Four suspects were later arrested. The jewels were not recovered.

XIV. The Ledger

The year does not resolve.

Wars continued: Ukraine, Sudan, the trembling ceasefires in the Levant. The machinery of deportation ground on. Political violence claimed lives across continents. The climate warmed. The machines grew. Trade buckled under new barriers. The old order strained.

A pope died; an American took his place. A generation made noise. Wind and solar outpaced coal for the first time. Sanctuaries were established in distant seas.

The chronicle records. It does not adjudicate. The judgment belongs to those who inherit what remains.

Here ends the account of the year 2025.