In 2025, when Elon Musk joined the government as the de facto head of something called the "department of government efficiency", he declared that governments were poorly configured "big dumb machines". To the senator Ted Cruz, he explained that "the only way to reconcile the databases and get rid of waste and fraud is to actually look at the computers". Muskism came to Washington soaked in memes, adolescent boasts and sadistic victory dances over mass firings. Leading a team of teenage coders and mid-level managers drawn from his suite of companies, Musk aimed to enter the codebase and rewrite regulations and budget lines from within. He would drag the paper-pushing bureaucracy kicking and screaming into the digital 21st century, scanning the contents of cavernous rooms of filing cabinets and feeding the data into a single interoperable system. The undertaking combined features of private equity-led restructuring with startup management, shot through with the sensibility of gaming and rightwing culture war. To succeed, he would need "God mode", an overview of the whole. If the mandate of Doge was to "[modernise] federal technology and software to maximise governmental efficiency and productivity", in the words of the executive order that launched the initiative on 20 January 2025, the reality was a strengthening of the state's surveillance capacities. Over time, Musk had become convinced that the real bugs in the code were people, especially the non-white illegal immigrants whom he saw as pawns in a liberal scheme to corrupt democracy and beneficiaries of what he called "suicidal empathy". He understood empathy itself in coding terms.

AI regulation requires harmonization between state and federal approaches, but fragmented policies risk undermining US competitive advantage in this critical technology.

Protests across Minnesota--and around the country--are ongoing, as residents demonstrate against their federal government. It's been one week since a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a resident of Minneapolis, Minnesota . Since then, the city has been in tumult. Thousands of protestors--from young students to elderly residents--have taken to the streets, setting up memorials for Good and facing off with ICE agents. More than 2,000 ICE agents have been deployed to Minneapolis, with another 1,000 on the way.

'We Ain't Seen Nothing Yet'--Trump's Mass Deportations Will Only Grow From Here Militias and far-right extremists believed they would be central to Trump's mass deportation plans. When Donald Trump won a second term as US president a year ago, members of violent militias and far-right extremist groups who had spent years boosting the lie that the 2020 election was rigged were ready to assist the president with delivering on one of his main campaign promises: mass deportations. "I'm willing to help," Richard Mack, a former sheriff who founded the far-right Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, told WIRED at the time, claiming he was in touch with Tom Homan, the man Trump installed as his "border czar." Tim Foley, head of the Arizona Border Recon, which describes itself as a "non-government organization," also told WIRED he was in contact with administration officials. William Teer, then head of the far-right Texas Three Percenters militia, wrote a letter to Trump offering his help.

In today's episode of, we dive into five stories--from AI to DOGE--that encapsulate the year and give us clues as to what might unfold in 2026. For better or for worse, this year had it all--from the AI industry shaping the global economy and our lives, to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency taking over US federal agencies under Elon Musk's leadership. In today's episode, host Zoë Schiffer and executive editor Brian Barrett get together to reflect on some of this year's key moments--and how they give us important clues as to what we can expect this upcoming year. The FBI's Jeffrey Epstein Prison Video Had Nearly 3 Minutes Cut Out Write to us at uncannyvalley@wired.com . You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how: If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link . Today on the show, we're wrapping up our news episode series by reflecting on the trends and stories that shaped 2025. And who better to do that with than Brian Barrett, our executive editor who works tirelessly in the shadows? Thank you for having me. Happy to emerge from my shadowy lair. What a year it's been, and I'm so excited for it to be almost over. Because it's been quite a year news-wise, safe to say, especially in tech and politics. Honestly, it was a little bit tricky to pick which trends we should discuss today, but we settled on five stories that kind of encapsulate this year pretty well, and I think give us clues as to what is going to be unfolding in 2026. The first one that I want to talk about is dear to my heart, and it's about AI data centers. So we all know that the investment, the amount of money being spent on data centers is absolutely staggering, with companies like Meta, Google, and Microsoft tripling down on AI infrastructure spending this year. But it's not just about the money that's being spent.

My position feels more precarious than ever. It's a question that I sometimes toss out in the company of friends who--like me, and maybe like you--have a complicated relationship to their job. I've worked at WIRED as a writer for eight years, and with much success. Eight years is also an eternity in news media, and especially if you are Black. All industries suffer from unique growing pains. Ours just so happens to have laughably high turnover rates, a distaste for racial and gender diversity, and the dubious distinction of being perpetually on the verge of extinction. So on nights when friends and I gather, trading war stories of workplace microaggressions and corporate mismanagement under damp bar lighting, we wonder how we've lasted as long as we have. The only reason I've survived, I joke, is because I'm Black. It's a silly thing to say, particularly because I have no actual proof of it other than the occasional feeling. What I do know is that I've been The Only One in more spaces than I care to remember, and rarely by choice.

After Zohran Mamdani's victory, Republicans are fearmongering about Democrats turning socialist. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is busy taking stakes in private companies and ordering them around. With the victory of Zohran Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, in New York City's mayoral election last week, socialism is on the march. "This is the future House Democrats want, and your city could be next," an N.R.C.C. ad blared the day after Mamdani won. Mamdani is hardly representative of the national Democratic Party.

The US government is aiming to ease the pressure on air traffic controllers suffering shutdown-related woes by curtailing flights. But airlines have experience with this kind of sudden disruption. Newark Liberty International Airport is one of the high-traffic airports that could see flight cuts starting Friday. The US Federal Aviation Administration plans to cut 10 percent of flights in 40 high-traffic airports on Friday morning if Congress fails to reopen the federal government by then, Transportation secretary Sean Duffy and FAA chief Bryan Bedford said Wednesday. The announcement came days after the US agency said it faced widespread shortages of air traffic controllers in half of the country's 30 busiest airports and hours-long security lines caused by absences of Transportation Security Administration agents.

As confidence in the C.D.C. wanes, states are asserting more control over their vaccine policies, creating a fragmented public-health system. Last week, former officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned members of Congress that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services, was endangering the nation's welfare by dismissing evidence and expertise in favor of his own vaccine skepticism. Kennedy "censored C.D.C. science, politicized its processes, and stripped leaders of independence," Debra Houry, the agency's former chief medical officer, said in a hearing this past Wednesday. The following day, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices ()--the scientific panel that influences U.S. vaccine policy more than any other body--began a chaotic and contentious two-day meeting about updating the country's vaccination recommendations. The committee's members had been handpicked by Kennedy, some of them joining just days before. Several of's decisions, which were announced last week, will have limited practical impact.

During WWII, the U.S. government censored the weather Even baseball rain delays went unexplained. A World War II poster, created for the War Production Board around 1942-1943, declares "Weather is a weapon." Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. The call went out from WREC's studios in downtown Memphis at 6:57 p.m. Central War Time: Doctors and nurses were urgently needed in communities south and west of the city. That was all the information the station was allowed to provide, despite the ongoing threat.