The first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second term feel like they’ve dragged on for an eternity, with each day’s news cycle bringing fresh hell to reckon with. But there is evidence of real political progress if you dig below the onslaught of dire headlines, and there are pockets of defiance, even rebellion, to this new governmental order that deserve recognition. There have been cultural moments since January 20, too, that brought us a mood boost or a sigh of relief — and sometimes that alone can be fuel to keep going. Here’s to the precious few wins so far to celebrate under Trump 2.0.
1.
Trump’s approval rating is in the toilet …
He may have started off his second term more popular than he was at the same time in 2017, but his approval rating now is at a historic low.
2.
… And even young men are souring on him.
Eighteen-to-29-year-old men may have helped deliver Trump the election in November, but 59 percent of them now disapprove of the job he’s doing, according to a Harvard Youth Poll.
3.
For the first time in history, two Black women are serving together in the Senate.
Two bright spots to come out of the 2024 election: Senators Angela Alsobrooks and Lisa Blunt Rochester.
4.
Michelle Obama skipped the pomp and circumstance of Trump’s inauguration.
The former First Lady exercised her right to say “no” to all that.
5.
Bishop Mariann Budde called out Trump’s cruelty to his face.
The first woman to lead the Episcopal diocese of Washington asked him to have mercy on immigrants and LGBTQ+ people at the National Prayer Service during his first week in office.
6.
Maine’s governor stood on business when Trump demanded she kick trans athletes out of school sports.
Janet Mills coolly replied: “See you in court.”
7.
The countdown to Mitch McConnell’s retirement is on.
The former Senate majority leader decided to leave office after his term is up in 2026.
8.
Listening to actual trans people changed one man’s position on gender-affirming care.
In March, Larry Jones arrived at the Wisconsin State Capitol to support a Republican-sponsored bill that would ban gender-affirming care for minors. The 85-year-old conservative didn’t plan to speak at the hearing. But after listening to trans teens and their families share their experiences, including a 14-year-old who said they’d struggled with suicidal ideation, for nearly eight hours, he put his name down to claim a turn. “I was one of the critics that sat on the side and made the decision there was only two genders, so I got an education that was unbelievable,” he told lawmakers of what he heard that day. “And I don’t know just exactly how to say this, but my perspective for people has changed. I’d like to apologize for being here.” Afterward, Jones told Wisconsin Watch that he now believes any decisions around gender-affirming care should be made by a minor, their families, and their doctor — not lawmakers. ”All of these kids, they deserve a chance to see where they belong,” he added. — Andrea González-Ramírez
9.
The Supreme Court saved Richard Glossip from death row.
The justices threw out his murder conviction — which involved at least one lying witness and the prosecution withholding information — and subsequent death-penalty sentence and ordered a new trial.
10.
A big-law associate rallied her peers to stand up for the rule of law.
In March, associates at America’s biggest law firms issued an open letter calling on their employers to stand up to Trump. The president had begun an aggressive, multipronged assault on the rule of law, first purging federal employees who’d worked on January 6 cases from the FBI and Department of Justice and firing government oversight watchdogs. Then he came for the legal profession, slapping executive orders on firms that had represented his political enemies. That includes Covington & Burling, the largest law firm in D.C., which represented a special counsel who’d brought criminal cases against Trump, and Perkins Coie, which worked with the Clinton campaign. The open letter, which has since been signed by almost 2,000 associates, expresses alarm at this retaliatory crusade and its chilling impact on civil rights in America. “It is easy to be afraid to be the first to speak. We are removing that barrier; we are speaking. Now it’s our employers’ turn.”
Many of these employers have remained silent as the Trump administration’s executive orders get contested in court. So far, nine firms have buckled to his demands and pledged a collective $940 million in pro-bono legal work to his causes. In the face of this cowardice, individual lawyers have shown remarkable leadership — none more than Rachel Cohen, a 2022 Harvard Law School graduate and then-third-year finance associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. An organizer of the open letter, she’s become a face of the big-law resistance movement, publicly resigning from Skadden after it capitulated to the administration and conducting a media tour to pressure her industry to speak up. (More than 700 partners at America’s top-200 law firms have banded together to form the nonprofit Law Firm Partners United, a collective body for dissent.) A testament to the power of individuals, she is being honored by the Rosenstrasse Civil Courage Foundation this week for her bravery. — Cat Zhang
11.
Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are rallying pissed-off constituents.
Tens of thousands of voters have attended the pair’s Fight the Oligarchy rallies in recent weeks.
12.
It doesn’t sound like Barron Trump will be running for (college) office anytime soon.
The NYU freshman stirred up enough drama in the college’s Republican club.
13.
Civic Match is helping laid-off federal workers stay in public service.
When a real-estate specialist position opened up at the General Services Administration last fall, Eva leaped at the opportunity to apply. Eva, who’d immigrated to the U.S. from Bangladesh in the mid-2000s, always wanted to give back to her adopted country by joining the federal government. Within two months, she had an offer in hand, packed up her life in Georgia, and went to work at a GSA office in Missouri. “Everything worked out just like magic,” she says. Eva was a few months into that job when the Trump administration began laying off probationary workers like her in mid-February. Losing the position was crushing, but then Eva found out in the news about Civic Match, a free platform created by the nonprofit Work for America that connects public servants with new jobs in city and state governments. “This is an area that has been desperate for talent for the last several years,” says Caitlin Lewis, Work for America’s executive director. The program gained new urgency in the aftermath of the mass layoffs: Lewis says that about 38 percent of Civic Match’s current users have been let go by the Trump administration. And those workers are incredibly valuable, she notes. “They’ve run billion-dollar programs. They’ve helped to manage emergencies. They’ve delivered services that keep our communities running.”
And despite all of the chaos and confusion of the past 100 days, they want to keep serving the public. A recent survey by Civic Match found that 76 percent of the laid-off federal workers using the platform are more likely to take a job in state and local government than they were before. Eva is one of them; sure, she could go back to working in commercial real estate like she was before. But that’s not what she wants. “That doesn’t give me the kind of honor and pride that I get from saying I work for the United States,” Eva says. “It is a calling.” — Andrea González-Ramírez
14.
Even Florida doesn’t want to be associated with the Tate brothers.
Governor Ron DeSantis said Andrew and Tristan Tate weren’t welcome in the state, and local authorities promptly opened a criminal investigation after they arrived from Romania, where they’re facing sex-trafficking and rape charges.
15.
A judge forbade Alabama from prosecuting groups who help women travel out of the state to get an abortion.
16.
Arizona’s 15-week abortion ban has been permanently blocked …
17.
… And abortions resumed in Missouri for the first time since Roe v. Wade was struck down.
18.
Students at Texas A&M didn’t let drag bans stop their show.
After one of the most conservative public universities in the U.S. banned drag shows from campus, students in College Station took the school to court — and won a temporary reprieve. “Draggieland,” the yearly drag show put on by Texas A&M’s Queer Empowerment Council, brought queens from all over the state to the stage in March before a nearly sold-out crowd.
19.
Rep. Brittany Pettersen is fighting for working mothers both inside and outside Congress.
Working mothers are famously good at multitasking, but perhaps no one exemplifies this more than Representative Brittany Pettersen. Last month, the Colorado congresswoman went viral for an impassioned speech she gave on the House floor when voting against a Republican budget proposal — all while cradling her 4-week-old infant, Sam, in her arms.
“Unfortunately, I wasn’t given the opportunity to vote remotely after giving birth,” Pettersen said. “But I wasn’t going to let that stop me from being here to represent my constituents and vote ‘no’ on this disastrous Republican budget proposal.” She criticized the Trump administration for focusing on “ripping health care away from kids, moms, seniors, and others who need it most” while providing tax cuts for billionaires.
The powerful image of Pettersen cradling her newborn son in her arms drew attention to bipartisan legislation Pettersen co-authored proposing that members of Congress be allowed to vote by proxy if they are pregnant or have just given birth. Though a discharge petition forcing members to vote on the bill garnered 218 signatures, a majority of the House, Speaker Mike Johnson killed it on the grounds that it was “unconstitutional.” The bill, Pettersen says, forces her colleagues in the House to demonstrate “whether they actually believe that we should make Congress more accessible for young women and for young families,” she told me when we spoke on the phone the other day, her infant son occasionally crying in the background. “And I can tell you I don’t think that all of my colleagues agree that people like me should be there.”
I called Pettersen at her home in Colorado to chat about her speech, the pressures of being a postpartum mom in Congress, and what working mothers can do to resist the Trump administration’s attacks on women and families — all while her son (and mine) intermittently chimed in, in the background.
20.
Republicans in Montana refused to criminalize parents who provide gender-affirming care to their trans kids.
Seventeen (!) GOP state House members joined with Democrats earlier this month to block a bill that would have classified giving children under 16 access to medically necessary care such as hormones, puberty blockers, and surgeries as child endangerment.
21.
A data analyst is working to stop more than 2,000 people detained by ICE from getting lost in the system.
A man who recently welcomed his second child and who was detained during a routine check-in with immigration authorities in North Carolina. A couple who had lived in the United States for 35 years and who were arrested at an immigration appointment in California. A cancer researcher at Harvard who was detained at a Massachusetts airport and whose J-1 visa was canceled. The United States Disappeared Tracker keeps a record of these and more than 2,000 other people impacted by the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts so far in an effort to ensure they don’t fall off the map and get lost in the immigration-detention system entirely.
It’s the brainchild of Danielle Harlow, a 41-year-old data analyst in Ohio who watched with horror in March as the government began rounding up immigrants like Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk for political reasons and deported 200 Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador’s maximum-security gang prison without due process — and in defiance of a court order banning Trump officials from doing so.
They are disappearing people, she thought. Even though Harlow doesn’t think of herself as an activist, she felt compelled to act. “I kept thinking, What could anyone do to fight back in some way? To communicate that we’re not gonna stand for it?” She had extensive experience generating public-facing dashboards that make complicated data easy to digest, so she used media reports to create the tracker. More than 50 volunteers have joined the project to help scale it up since its launch and, as of late April, there were nearly 3,000 cases in the database. I spoke with Harlow about how she and the other volunteers are tracking these cases, the risks involved, and her hope that the effort inspires others to stand up to the Trump administration.
22.
Reports of the resistance’s death appear to have been greatly exaggerated.
Just look at the millions who attended the 50501 protests in opposition to Trump’s overreach.
23.
Susan Crawford won a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Her victory preserved the court’s liberal majority and embarrassed the hell out of Elon Musk, who spent $25 million trying to defeat her.
24.
An epidemiologist is countering RFK Jr.’s health misinformation one newsletter at a time.
Since he was confirmed as Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has gutted the nation’s public-health infrastructure, made bafflingly inconsistent statements about vaccines as measles cases rise, and even announced plans to create a disease registry to monitor people with autism. Amid the chaos, the newsletter Your Local Epidemiologist, run by Katelyn Jetelina, has been an essential resource for the health information people actually need. Jetelina, an epidemiologist who has consulted for the CDC, started the Substack in the early days of the COVID pandemic, when people were panicking and she noticed a “lack of understandable, timely, or actionable information.” She figured she’d keep it up for a few weeks — but five years later, she says her 375,000 subscribers are more engaged than ever.
Now, Jetelina and her team provide timely updates on everything from which health departments were eliminated from the CDC to why measles cases have not “flattened,” as RFK Jr. has claimed. Jetelina describes her audience as “trusted messengers” — doctors, teachers, policymakers, reporters; she says even the Texas Department of Health follows her measles updates. But she also hears from plenty of people who have changed their minds as a result of her work. “Someone wrote me an email saying her dad never got a vaccine in his life but got a COVID vaccine because of my newsletter,” she says. Another parent used her newsletter to advocate to their pediatrician to give their 6-month-old a measles vaccine ahead of schedule. Lately, Jetelina says she’s been getting a lot of comments about her “liberal bias,” and she’s working on it. “But I take it as a good sign that I have a pretty diverse audience hanging with me and reading my stuff.” — Erica Schwiegershausen
25.
Zohran Mamdani’s NYC mayoral campaign is a breath of fresh air.
When’s the last time you heard a politician say he didn’t need your money? Zohran Mamdani, a democratic-socialist assemblyman from Queens, has proved so popular that his campaign for New York City mayor maxed out on donations at the fastest speed in city history. More than 18,000 donors — including 2,400 who currently don’t even have jobs — chipped in to raise a cumulative $8 million with the help of public matching funds. At a time when the Democratic Establishment suffers from an embarrassing lack of initiative and imagination and disgrace follows city politics like a stench, Zohran feels like the rare politician with integrity and cool.
His campaign has a simple message: Make New York affordable again. “Politics too often requires translation,” he told The Nation. “It sounds like a five-step process where you struggle to understand how it’s relevant to your life.” What affordability means to Mamdani is free bus rides — he won the first fare-free bus pilot in 2023 — rent freezes for stabilized tenants, universal child care, and city-run grocery stores. And his campaign has gone out of its way to put these ideas in front of lefty downtown scenesters and working-class Trump voters alike. In the immediate aftermath of Trump’s election, he interviewed ordinary people on the street in the Bronx and Queens to understand New York’s red shift. A social-media savant, he’s also cold-plunged in Coney Island to promote a rent freeze, livestreamed with Hasan Piker, and visited the grieving families of nursing-home residents who died from then-Governor Andrew Cuomo’s COVID policies. His fundraiser at Nightclub 101 in March was the hottest event in the city with a line that wrapped around the block. He’s popular and principled. What more could you want? – Cat Zhang
26.
Vivian Wilson ruthlessly dunked on her father, Elon Musk, in Teen Vogue.
In a cover story written by Ella Yurman, host of the very good YouTube news series “Going Down,” Wilson opened up about her experience as the estranged trans daughter of one of the richest men in the world. The sickest burn? When Wilson calls Musk a “pathetic manchild who can’t play Xbox.” Ouch.
27.
Senator Cory Booker showed Democrats what standing for something (literally) looks like.
For 25 consecutive hours in early April, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey held the floor of the Senate. He did not sit, eat, or use the bathroom. Instead, he delivered a history-making speech in which he took the Trump administration to task for its attacks on democracy, its plans to slash safety-net programs, and its persecution of marginalized communities, including transgender people and immigrants. “These are not normal times in America,” Booker said on the floor, “and they should not be treated as such.” Pulling off such a physically, emotionally, and logistically challenging feat apparently took a lot of planning. His staff put together 1,164 pages of material, and Booker says he fasted for several days prior and didn’t have anything to drink the night before the speech began. Asked why he put his body on the line this way, Booker told Intelligencer: “I wanted to disrupt the normal order and center the people in this country who are struggling and try to call to the conscience of the country for all of us to see them, hear them, and do more for them, for each other, for ourselves, for our country.” — Andrea González-Ramírez
28.
Harvard showed the Ivy League still has some spine.
It’s one of a few universities that have rejected the Trump administration’s outrageous demands.
29.
Costco’s business is booming after embracing DEI.
The retailer doubled down on its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and saw an increase in foot traffic. Compare that with Target, which saw a drop in foot traffic after rolling back its own DEI measures.
30.
Angry voters are giving their members of Congress hell for falling down on the job
In Iowa, Republican senator Chuck Grassley’s constituents heckled him after he said he couldn’t help return to the U.S. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland father who was wrongfully deported by the Trump administration in March. In Washington State, voters furiously questioned Democratic representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez over her support for the SAVE Act, a measure that would make it harder for millions of Americans to vote. In North Carolina, a rowdy crowd pressed Republican representative Chuck Edwards on what exactly he’ll do to protect Social Security benefits.Similar scenes have played out across the country for weeks, as communities take lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to task for failing to stand up more forcefully to the Trump administration. It’s a powerful reminder that our elected officials work for us and that, come the next election, their constituents will remember whether they did right by them or not in this time of crisis. — Andrea González-Ramírez
31.
ICE tried to deport a New York family. Then their neighbors stepped in.
After a local mother and her three children were arrested and detained by immigration agents, 1,000 of the 1,351 residents of Sackets Harbor rallied outside “border czar” Tom Homan’s home there to demand the family’s release. It worked: DHS released the family from custody in Texas, and they returned home.
32.
Karma came for Kristi Noem …
A thief swiped a purse containing $3,000 in cash from the Homeland Security secretary, who’s been working hard to deport as many immigrants as she can, due process be damned, at a D.C. restaurant.
33.
… And George Santos.
The former congressman and current Cameo star has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison for wire fraud and identity theft, putting an end to his clownery (for now).
34.
France banned Marine Le Pen from running for public office.
The far-right French leader was found guilty of embezzlement in March and subsequently banned from campaigning for five years. It’s safe to assume someone with equally fraught views will take over from her as the leader of France’s National Front, but it’s nice to see a politician’s actions be met with real consequences.
35.
Canadians gave Trump the middle finger in their own elections.
36.
Protesters swarmed Trump Tower to demand Mahmoud Khalil’s release …
Demonstrators with Jewish Voice for Peace put their bodies on the line to support the former Columbia grad student, who helped lead antiwar protests at the university and express their anger at the president’s co-opting antisemitism.
37.
… And Susan Sarandon showed her support for Khalil in court.
38.
Mohsen Mahdawi has been released from immigration detention.
The Palestinian student who helped organize campus protests at Columbia had been arrested when he arrived for his citizenship exam.
39.
Pope Francis called Gaza’s Christians every night from the beginning of the war until his death.
Fewer than 1,400 Christians remain in the territory devastated by Israeli air strikes. But for 15 minutes a day, Francis reminded those gathered at the Holy Family Church in Gaza City that they were not forgotten, Father Gabriel Romanelli told CNN.
40.
Elon Musk rage-quit a video-game livestream after users cyberbullied him.
An effective use of public shaming.
41.
Dave Portnoy said he probably lost $20M as the stock market reeled from Trump’s tariff announcements.
Perhaps the Barstool Sports founder now understands what FAFO means.
42.
Luigi Mangione showed us his bare ankles.
43.
The National Parks Service restored Harriet Tubman’s story to its website.
In early February, references to Harriet Tubman were suddenly removed from the National Parks Service’s “What Is the Underground Railroad?” webpage. As Tubman is one of the most notable Black women in history and the most recognized Underground Railroad conductor, her erasure from the site felt like a capitulation to the Trump administration’s push against DEI initiatives, though NPS employees were puzzled as to who was responsible for the removal. Thankfully, the page has been restored.
44.
An Indigenous shrine that collected dust in the American Museum of Natural History for 120 years finally returns home.
The museum recently returned a shrine taken in the early 1900s from a First Nations group called the Mowachaht, marking one of the most significant international repatriations in its history.
45.
A predominantly Black, all-female unit that served overseas in World War II finally was honored with a congressional medal.
46.
Black Civil War soldiers also will be honored in Virginia with a seven-foot-tall bronze monument.
47.
Environmental regulations have cleaned up NYC waterways well enough that dolphins and whales are returning.
48.
Renewable energy has beat out fossil fuels.
More power was generated using renewable sources like wind and solar than fossil fuels in March, according to energy think tank Ember — the first month that’s ever happened.
49.
Iowa may be Trump country, but the state refused to give up its wind turbines for him.
50.
Regulators recalled nearly all Cybertrucks.
It’s the eighth customer-safety recall in 15 months for the Tesla vehicle, which surely needs Elon Musk’s attention more than the Department of Government Efficiency.
51.
Jalen Hurts skipped the Philadelphia Eagles’ White House visit.
A reporter stopped the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback at the Time100 Gala to ask if he’d be attending his team’s Super Bowl victory celebration at the White House. Hurts pointedly didn’t answer, then he didn’t go. King behavior.
52.
A star-studded fashion show raised $50,000 for trans rights.
Getting Cynthia Nixon to walk the runway along with model-of-the-year Alex Consani may seem like a feat to pull off, but John Mollett, the owner of Willbees, has been hosting fashion auctions for years. Mollett was introduced to actor Bobbi Salvör Menuez when he donated a piece to a fundraiser Mollet was working on for Julian Assange; the two quickly realized how big their overlapping community of New Yorkers was, and a fruitful partnership was born. In 2021, they co-organized a celebrity auction that featured a painting by Hunter Shafer and some vintage items of Mollett’s to raise money for the LGBTQ community. So when Trans Day of Visibility rolled around under Trump 2.0, the duo knew they had to cook up their biggest venture yet. “It’s like Jack and the Beanstalk, where we plant a teeny seed, and it just grows and grows and grows,” Mollett says.
First, the pair tapped Chloë Sevigny, Miranda July, Lena Waithe, and Aimee Lou Wood to design T-shirts to sell online. Then they put together a fashion show fittingly titled Mother, where celebrities like Madonna and Julia Fox sat in the front row, and trans models and activists walked the runway wearing T-shirts from the collection and pieces donated for the cause from designers like Willy Chavarria, Conner Ives, Diotima, Marni, Miss Claire Sullivan, and Vaquera. “It looked very fab and glam online,” says Menuez, “but everyone in that room was probably crying at one point or another.”
Mother raised $50,000 for the Trans Justice Funding Project, and the three-act fundraiser is still unraveling before us. Next up is Daughter, which entails online drops of clothing from the runway, along with the items from the closets of Sevigny, Fox, Hari Nef, and Pedro Pascal, as well as more vintage designer pieces from Mollett’s collection, for the general public to shop throughout May. To conclude, there’ll be a party in late May titled Holy Spirit to bring everyone together and raise even more funds. If it’ll be anything like the catwalk, it’s safe to assume it’ll be the party of the year. — Brooke LaMantia
53.
Altadena Girls brought joy back to teens who lost their homes in the L.A. wildfires.
In the wake of the fires, the organization launched by 14-year-old Avery Colvert gathers the usual clothes and necessities for those who lost homes and belongings in the disaster but also the items that make teen girls feel like themselves: makeup, hair products, pimple patches, bras, and even Squishmallows. Altadena Girls’ donation drives gave these teens a place to gather during the fires, and now, the group will continue to build community with the planned opening of a permanent store.
54.
One Brooklyn dad felt lonely after the birth of his son and posted a TikTok about it.
Joe Gonzales has since made 1,400 new friends and counting.
55.
The first Black woman coach won a Super Bowl.
Cheers to the Philadelphia Eagles’ performance coach Autumn Lockwood.
56.
Nearly 20 new women’s sports bars are slated to open this year.
Including Wilka’s in New York, Jolene Jolene in Atlanta, One of Us in San Diego, Raise the Bar in Columbus, and Chapstick in Nashville.
57.
The NCAA finally paid women’s basketball teams for playing in March Madness.
And it’s about damn time: Men’s college teams have received payments for making the tournament since 1991.
58.
The WNBA champions are getting their own practice facility.
The owners of the New York Liberty announced a plan to open a space in Brooklyn in the next two years that will feature private rooms, recovery spaces, a child-care center, and more.
59.
An American won the world figure-skating championships for the first time in 19 years.
Congrats to Alysia Liu!
60.
Last year’s Boston Marathon runner-up smashed the women’s record by two minutes.
Sharon Lokedi, inspiration for anyone who joined a run club this year.
61.
The astronauts stranded on the ISS finally returned to Earth…
Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams made it home safely after spending 286 days in space.
62.
… And an aspiring astronaut accomplished her long-deferred dream of going to space.
Blue Origin’s all-female space flight was a grotesque flex of wealth and power. Still, one crew member deserved her spot on the rocket: Amanda Nyugen, an activist and bioastronautics researcher who has spent the past four years training to be an astronaut. The invitation to float in microgravity alongside Lauren Sánchez and Katy Perry was Nyugen’s best shot at going to space, and she seized the opportunity to collect data that could improve women’s health on earth. — Angelina Chapin
63.
The FDA approved a new antibiotic for UTIs …
It’s the first time in 30 years that a treatment has been approved for the most common infection in women.
64.
… And a new hormone-free IUD.
Low-dose copper insert Miudella will be available later this year.
65.
Cervical precancer rates are down by 79 percent among young women.
Higher-grade cancer indicators also are down by 80 percent among the same group, according to the CDC. Shoutout to the HPV vaccine!
66.
All 50 states are seeing fewer fentanyl overdoses than last year.
You can help keep the trend going by training to administer Narcan.
67.
Dire wolves (kinda) came back from extinction.
Researchers implanted dire-wolf genes into a surrogate gray-wolf mother in a process known as de-extinction, which revives extinct species. The three resulting wolf pups are alive, well, and exhibiting traits of the giant wolf that was last seen more than 13,000 years ago.
68.
The Big Bear bald eagles welcomed two healthy hatchlings after going two years with no new offspring.
69.
A miniature dachshund named Valerie has been rescued after roaming for 529 days in the Australian wilderness.
70.
Kendrick Lamar turned the Super Bowl into the Petty Bowl.
Hey, Drake!
71.
No Other Land won the Oscar for best documentary.
After a successful film-festival run, and despite no U.S. distributor picking up the film, the Palestinian-Israeli feature-length documentary No Other Land won the Oscar. The documentary chronicles the Israeli military’s violent eviction of Palestinians from their homes in the occupied West Bank from 2019 to 2023, and its win brought more visibility to the filmmakers. In late March, they said their colleague Hamdan Ballal had been attacked in his home village by Israeli settlers and detained overnight. “This might be their revenge on us for making the movie,” Ballal’s co-director Basel Adra said. The Academy itself did not defend Ballal or the documentary in the wake of the attack, but many other Hollywood heavyweights stepped up to support them.
72.
Gabby Windey redefined the multihyphenate.
In 2025, when you hear someone refer to “the people’s princess,” they’re talking about Gabby Windey, formerly of Bachelor Nation fame and present faithful winner of The Traitors and host of the unfiltered podcast Long Winded. Who else can seamlessly riff on everything from prostate exams (she’s a former ICU nurse) and getting neck botox on the job (she’s a former NFL cheerleader) to learning how to have lesbian sex (she also recently married comedian Robby Hoffman in Vegas) and feuding with Michael Bublé on Dancing With the Stars? — Brooke Marine
73.
Bad Bunny’s Calvin Klein ad made the Noho billboard exciting again.
The brand has held the coveted spot above Houston and Lafayette Streets for at least ten years, and while it has seen its fair share of hunks in that time, the internet is extra happy for Benito. Us too.
74.
Ella Emhoff hosted her first craft night after a seven-month hiatus.
For obvious reasons, the model and stepdaughter of former vice-president Kamala Harris had to stop hosting her popular Soft Hands Knit Club after tensions rose during the 2024 election. But in March, Emhoff and the club finally returned to teach 100 people in Brooklyn how to knit.
75.
Hannah Einbinder used her platform to speak out for Palestine.
When the Hacks star accepted the Visibility Award from the Human Rights Campaign in March, she took the opportunity to speak out against Trump, the war in Gaza, and the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil. “We queer people know what it is like to be marginalized and demonized in society without the institutional power necessary to protect our community,” Einbinder said, later adding that, “as a queer person, as a Jewish person, and as an American, I am horrified by the Israeli government’s massacre of well over 65,000 Palestinians.”
76.
The Pitt gave us a leader to believe in.
Sometimes all it takes is one rigorously politically progressive medical procedural to soothe all that ails us, at least for as long as it takes to watch all 15 episodes. I’m talking, of course, about The Pitt, which introduced viewers to instantly iconic flawed hero Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch (Noah Wyle), who runs the gang of ragtag superheroes treating an unceasing stream of patients at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center. These patients give the doctors, and us, a chance to feel like we can fix at least some of what’s wrong with the world, one person at a time. Though the show’s been criticized for having too many after-school-special-style teachable moments, I would counter that those moments are exactly what makes the show perfect for this moment in time.
People need to be walked through this stuff! And by “this stuff” I mean how birth looks in extreme close-up, how a patient in sickle-cell crisis could be misdiagnosed as a drug seeker, how important it is to get a trans patient’s gender right in the computer system — oh, and just casually thrown in there, how abortion care saves lives. Throughout the series, it’s emphasized that some patients linger in the ER for days simply because there’s nowhere else for them to go, despite the efforts of social workers. Rats crawl out of a homeless man’s sweater when his clothes are cut off. One elderly schizophrenic patient is seemingly abandoned by her daughter. The daughter returns eventually, but it’s made clear that not all stories about burned-out caregivers end the same way.
Most infuriating and most complex is a late-season story line where a child is near death because he and his sister are both unvaccinated and have contracted measles. While she recovered quickly, he developed sepsis and pneumonia. The first doctors who encounter him don’t even recognize his rash because of how rare measles blessedly still is, but Dr. Robby gets to the bottom of it. When the anti-vaxxer mom balks at a spinal tap — it says on her phone they can cause paralysis! — Dr. Robby, acting as a proxy for all of us, loses his shit and yells at her. Then he walks the dad into the makeshift morgue they’ve set up following the mass shooting in the previous episode because while they couldn’t save these people, his son could still live. It’s definitely not ethical. The dad calls Dr. Robby an asshole, but then he consents to the procedure. One more life is saved on The Pitt, and maybe somewhere out there, just one vaccine skeptic is converted. If that sounds overly optimistic, it’s because that’s how watching The Pitt makes you feel — briefly, gloriously, like someone competent and caring is in charge. — Emily Gould
77.
Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker confirmed their relationship.
A win for Gen-Z lesbians everywhere.
78.
Lady Gaga’s Mayhem made us dance like it was 2008 again.
It sucks that we may (or may not be, depending on the hour) heading for a recession. But you know what doesn’t suck? Recession pop. The country’s last economic downturn gave us a slew of gloriously vapid songs seemingly written solely to smooth out the folds in our brains think “Patron Tequila,” by the Paradiso Girls, or Rihanna’s “Please Don’t Stop the Music” — as well as a kooky pop star in a platinum wig and a little blue lightning bolt on her cheek. While Lady Gaga has tried on various genres over the years, nothing hit quite like ’08’s The Fame, the album that awoke Little Monsters everywhere, fed the queer community, and gave young people something to gyrate mindlessly to. As “these trying times” have returned; so too has the recession-pop order been restored with Gaga’s latest studio album, Mayhem. “Garden of Eden” and “LoveDrug” are perfect for yearning and thrashing in turn, while “Shadow of a Man” and “Don’t Call Tonight” make being embarrassed by emotionally immature 40-year-olds feel ecstatic. On Friday nights, I now drink my little grape Celsius while applying fake eyelashes and yell, “Feel the beat / Under your feet / The floor’s on FIIIIIRE!” and I encourage you to do the same. — Emily Leibert
79.
Adolescence got people talking about teen boys and the manosphere.
No one knows what to do about the unprecedented access children now have to technology and social media, but at least we’re having the conversation.
80.
Alex Consani matched Amelia Dimoldenberg’s freak.
Amelia Dimoldenberg has built a media empire out of awkwardly flirting with celebrity guests on her decade-old YouTube show Chicken Shop Date. It’s rare that a guest beats the British host at her own game — but American model Alex Consani was one of those who successfully got Dimoldenberg to break character (more than once!) in her episode of the series by casually blowing rings with her vape pen, talking about her dreams of having sex backstage at a fashion show, and slightly negging the host. They’re a dream-blunt rotation. — Brooke Marine
81.
HBO used Carrie Coon to the fullest.
Anyone who watched The Leftovers back in 2015 knows that Carrie Coon is an absolute star. She was excellent in the latest season of The White Lotus as Laurie, an occasionally messy and honest-to-a-fault lawyer on vacation with her childhood best friends. A line-by-line analysis of Laurie’s final, emotional monologue about the value of time and friendship would be confusing at best, but the raw emotion she brought to it had me welling up with tears anyway. My personal highlight was watching her character escape through a window after a one-night stand gone wrong. But for me, Coon will always be Bertha Russell above all. Not only is Bertha the top in the relationship with her railroad-magnate husband on The Gilded Age, but she had me on the edge of my seat over the fate of a single bowl of soup last season. She is fabulous, she’s deliciously petty, and she has me rooting for her even through the villain arc I predict she’s going to have this summer in season three. — Katja Vujic
82.
It’s a huge publishing year for trans authors.
Wait until J.K. Rowling hears about Hot Girls With Balls.
83.
You can also now buy your e-books from your local bookstores rather than Amazon.
Your neighborhood indie needs your money more than Jeff Bezos.
84.
NPR’s “Tiny Desk” concerts this year have been wild, special programming.
It’s disgusting that the DOGE dweebs would come for NPR, a clear public good — and big-time purveyor of beauty, especially lately. “Tiny Desk” is an institution, and that’s why it’s shocking that this year’s crop of live-in-the-office performances has been outstanding. Institutions are supposed to calcify into mediocrity, not offer us the best of Leon Thomas, Saya Grey, and MJ Lenderman. “Tiny Desk” videos offer a wealth of nonprescription mood enhancers to get you through your workday: I’ve watched Panda Bear four times just to marvel at how he arranges his face for perfect vocal harmonies with his band. Yseult ate. Cordae delighted in being in D.C., home of the “Desk” and his hometown, too. Yasmin Williams offered her lush, complex talent in the hard-to-nail area of fingerstyle guitar — thank you to her! Even Third Eye Blind dropped by? I never realized how beautiful and clear that guy’s voice is, but I may have changed my mind. — Amy Rose Spiegel
85.
RuPaul let it all out on Instagram.
86.
The sexiest men on TV let their receding hairlines be.
Men will do anything to keep their hair. My social-media feeds are littered with men extolling the virtues of rosemary oil and Kirkland Signature brand Minoxidil. When a male celebrity starts wearing a lot of hats and then suddenly emerges with a beautiful head of hair, people wonder aloud, “Did he, you know, go to Turkey?” Our president has been obsessed with his own windswept comb-over for the better part of 40 years, and his cronies seem to think that a slick coif will distract from their own ineptitude. Something that seems to have slipped the minds of most men, however, is that it’s entirely possible that they might look better without their hair.
They needn’t look further than two of the biggest shows of the year to see this in practice. Hands down, the sexiest guy on TV this season has been Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, the senior attending at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital emergency room — a.k.a. Noah Wyle on The Pitt. Yes, it’s hot that he wears Carhartts instead of scrubs and that he has a sensitive soul. But he also has the hair of a 53-year-old. Wyle’s sex appeal is not in spite of his M-shaped hairline but because of it. Clinging to your youth is so try-hard, and there’s nothing hotter than a hot guy aging in a hot way. Case in point: Walton Goggins on The White Lotus. There are men paying thousands of dollars to claw back their hairline, oblivious to the fact that Goggins has cracked the code. If your forehead goes allllll the way back, everyone can see that your confidence is just off the charts. And what is sexier than that? Men need body-positivity role models too, and thankfully, HBO has delivered. — Olivia Craighead
87.
Gwenyth Paltrow is eating carbs and cheese again.
88.
Doechii’s red carpet looks hit just as hard as her album.
Every awards season, it seems the stars are in a bitter battle to outdo each other on the red carpet. See Bianca Censori arriving nude to the Grammys, Timothée Chalamet dressing up as Bob Dylan for the premiere of his movie about Bob Dylan, Ariana Grande really committing to the Glinda the Good Witch bit. It takes a rare bird to break through that cacophony, and in recent months, Doechii has done just that. The Florida-born rapper utilizes fashion just as much as she does her music as a vehicle for holistic storytelling. The Swamp Princess’s Grammy looks (yes, there were several), predominantly made up of playful Thom Browne suiting, highlighted the evolution of hip-hop, evoking the shift to business dress and tailoring popular for the genre in the early aughts. Doechii also explored her own connection to masculinity and femininity through these looks’ exaggerated silhouettes in contrasting fabrics. Each of Doechii’s outfits is a chance to world-build, to map her rich interior universe into something tangible. It’s refreshing to see an artist take the creativity she applies to her craft and repurpose it sartorially to create hit after visual hit. Even throughout Doechii’s stint at Paris Fashion Week, from attending the Schiaparelli show in a denim corset to showing up completely barefoot at Chloé (a controversial move), there was nary a miss. Doechii knows her references, and she knows how to draw on them without succumbing to cosplay; that makes her, now and likely forever, one of the fashion greats who’s here to stay. — Danya Issawi
89.
Coachella artists spoke out against the war in Gaza.
A handful of artists at this year’s festival used their time on stage to speak up in support of the Palestinian people, including Green Day and Blonde Redhead. Senator Bernie Sanders also thanked Clairo for using her platform to call for an end to the war in Gaza in a speech introducing the singer’s set.
90.
Pride & Prejudice (briefly) returned to the big screen.
Joe Wright’s 2005 adaptation of the Jane Austen novel rewired my brain as a teen, even though I only ever watched it on DVD. But! The film returned to theaters this month to celebrate its 20th anniversary, and I’m happy to report it was the perfect viewing experience. There were giggles during the infamous hand-flex scene and whispered quoting of “Excellent boiled potatoes” and having “no money and no prospects.” You could hear a pin drop while Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy danced, and we all let out big sighs when he trotted across the field in the early morning mist. I’d pay good money to repeat this experience at least once a month. — Andrea González-Ramírez
91.
Beyoncé brought out two extra-special guests to the opening of her Cowboy Carter Tour …
92.
… And you can now snag tickets to see Bey yourself for under $100. Yeehaw!
93.
Robert Irwin, son of the late crocodile hunter, started modeling in his underwear.
He’s set to join the cast of Dancing With the Stars, too.
94.
Michelle Williams met Michelle Williams.
The Destiny’s Child singer, who is currently starring in Death Becomes Her on Broadway, shared a video reacting to a fan letter praising her work — only the fan thought that she was the other Michelle Williams, the Dawson’s Creek and Dying for Sex actress. So when a photo of the duo captioned “finally” appeared, it felt like a long time coming.
95.
The biggest movie at the box office this spring was a love letter to the Black South.
It almost feels like a miracle that a movie as pulpy, sexy, scary, bluesy, and stunningly original as Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is hitting theaters now, before summer blockbuster season and Oscar-bait autumn (that it’s being released at all, in the endless IP-adaptation hell Hollywood has built for itself, counts as a victory). After opening to big numbers on Easter Weekend, Sinners is projected to take home at least $100 million, and what’s even better is that — in a move not entirely unprecedented but certainly rare — Coogler’s deal with Warner Bros. requires the studio to return the rights to the director in 25 years.
It’s gratifying to see a Black filmmaker’s movie succeed at the box office. It’s even more pleasing to see how much Sinners is not just by us but really for us. You shouldn’t go into it knowing too much, but it centers on twin brothers — Smoke and Stack, both played by Michael B. Jordan — who return to the Mississippi Delta in 1932 to build a juke joint where they plan to throw the most raucous party their hometown has ever seen. Coogler’s veneration of the Black South is palpable. He’s ambitiously telling this story, hitting so many Black American cultural touchpoints without hammering the audience over the head or explaining anything for white viewers (if you know, you know) and making it very clear how he feels about what it means for him to be a Black artist in this country right now. The movie is not perfect, but it’s a pleasant surprise to see it be so well received in this political moment. — Brooke Marine
96.
Meghan Markle’s jam finally hit the market.
The Duchess of Sussex’s preserves can now be yours (at least until the next time they sell out).
97.
Jack Black’s biggest fan met Jack Black.
During an appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show, Black surprised Tanner Smith, one of the stars of Love on the Spectrum, with a video message — before bursting through the stage doors to really surprise him IRL. Tanner’s now-viral reaction, and their embrace, is a sweet moment of pure elation that feels like a privilege to get to witness. — Jen Ortiz
98.
Broadway got incredibly good this year.
A YouTuber is selling out the St. James Theatre. A recent Best Supporting Oscar winner is headlining a David Mamet revival, while a few blocks away, a buzzy queer country star is vamping to Kander & Ebb, and the cutest Jonas brother is making heartbreak look damn good. The stage doors for TikTok-famous productions of Romeo and Juliet, Moulin Rouge, and The Outsiders all look like the outside of a K-pop boy-band concert. The evidence is all there: Broadway is pretty good — and, dare we say, possibly even cool.
This is a shocking new development. For the past few decades, the Great White Way has had a reputation for being stodgy, out-of-touch, and elitist, largely due to sky-high ticket prices and producers dredging up oft-revived musicals or tired jukebox adaptations instead of finding invigorating new material. But this season, sales are up, partly thanks to stars like Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal (Othello), George Clooney (Good Night, and Good Luck), Andrew Scott (Vanya), Sadie Sink (John Proctor Is the Villain), and Sarah Snook (The Picture of Dorian Gray) headlining boldly reimagined revivals as well as original productions. There’s also a slate of original musicals like Maybe Happy Ending, Operation Mincemeat, Smash, Death Becomes Her, and Floyd Collins getting rave reviews. (Let’s also not forget the truly delightful Boop, featuring an omnipresent dog marionette as Betty’s sidekick, Pudgy.)
So what’s accounting for this resurgence of interest in the Great White Way? Thanks to thriving fandoms on TikTok and Reddit, Gen-Z audiences are flocking to Broadway. But with more than three-quarters of current productions selling at 90 percent audience capacity or more, there’s a simpler answer here: There are just a lot of good shows on Broadway right now, and New Yorkers are desperate for a two-and-a-half-hour respite from the dismal political climate. If you have to shell out $30 for an Ozmopolitan at Wicked, that is a relatively small price to pay. — E.J. Dickson
99.
Jonathan Groff got theater audiences wet.
Real nerds have known for a long time that Jonathan Groff is a sprayer when he sings, but he probably should have handed out towels for the audience at Circle in the Square during his performance in Just in Time, the jukebox musical about the (short) life of playboy crooner Bobby Darin, which opened April 26. Before the show really kicks off, Groff jokingly warns the audience that if they’re in the nightclub seats in the center of the room or the first couple of rows behind them, they are absolutely going to be spit on. Judging by the moaning I heard at various points in the night (particularly when he strips down to his skivvies to perform in a bathtub surrounded by rubber duckies), it seemed like his spittle was a big draw for people. I should have known, based on his Variety Actors on Actors clip with Nicole Scherzinger, that the crowd would be squealing throughout. It was fun! Sexy! I learned a lot about Bobby Darin (RIP)! Splish-splash, indeed. — Brooke Marine
100.
Lorde dropped a surprise new single.
“What Was That?” comes just in time for summer.
101.
You’re still here, and you still have power.
Whether you’re feeling fatigued or fired up at this stage, defying Trump’s agenda this term means looking at activism more sustainably. Pick your cause and stick with it at a pace that works for you.