Alcohol was part of my life. My wake-up call was after I crashed my car while driving under the influence. I realized I can't fail my son, and now I'm working to regain his trust. For most of my adult life, alcohol was my crutch, my comfort, and eventually, my undoing. It seeped into every corner of my life relationships, work, and my sense of self. But nothing exposed the cost of my addiction to the same extent as looking at my 4-year-old son and knowing I was failing him.My decisive wake-up call came months ago. After a period of sobriety, I relapsed. On a weekday night after work, I hit the bottle, and before I knew it, I was behind the wheel, drunk and reckless. I crashed my car that night. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but the fallout hit me like a tidal wave. In the hospital afterward, I wasn't thinking about the damage to my car or the legal consequences all I could think about was my son Neil.I didn't want to be the dad I was I remember coming to the painful conclusion about the kind of father I had become. The kind who missed bedtime stories because he was desperate for a drink. The kind who made promises to take his son on trips and just as quickly broke those promises when the urge to drink took over. The kind who might not be around to see his child grow up if he kept going down this road.The morning after the crash, I admitted to myself that I couldn't keep living like this. I embarked, once again, on my recovery journey. But this time, my intent was absolute. I'm seven months sober. But sobriety is just one part of my journey. The more emotional work has been rebuilding my relationship with my son and earning back the trust that I broke.Children even at the tender age of 4, as my son is have a better sense of the world around them than we understand. My son might not have known I was drinking, but I know he felt the distance. He noticed when I wasn't paying attention to him and when I overreacted to small things because I was nursing a hangover.I can't forgive myself for what I didThe shame and guilt of knowing how my choices shaped Neil's early years is something I carry with me every day. Those first few years of his life should have been about joy, security, and connection. Instead, my addiction robbed us of moments we'll never get back. And as hard I try, and as much as I understand the importance of doing so, I'll never forgive myself for that.This time, in recovery, I was determined to make up for lost time. I intended to dive into parenting with everything I had. I wanted to be the dad who shows up when he says he will, takes his son to the park, and never misses bedtime. And I have been doing those things. But, as I failed to realize, trust takes time.One of the most challenging parts of recovery, undoubtedly, has been accepting that my son needs time to trust me again. When I pick him up from nursery, I see now and then the hesitation in his eyes, a sense of doubt I put there.I'm focused on rebuilding trustAt first, that reaction devastated me. But, over time, I've learned to see it as part of the process. Rebuilding trust isn't about grand gestures; it's about showing up consistently, day after day. It's about reading the bedtime story even when I'm tired or sitting on the floor to build a Lego tower when my mind is racing with recovery challenges.I've also as part of my recovery been having difficult conversations with Neil. At 4, my son is too young to comprehend addiction, but I've started explaining it in simple terms. I tell him, "Daddy used to make bad choices, but now I'm working hard to make better ones." I want him to see that it's OK to admit when you've messed up as long as you're willing to do the work to make things right.Parenting while in recovery is a balancing act. It's about managing my healing while staying present for my son. It's about showing him, through my actions, that people can change and that mistakes don't have to define you.For the first time in his life and mine I'm showing up as my true self. And for me, that's the greatest victory of all.

I had enough airline miles for two round-trip first-class tickets from Los Angeles to Orlando.We enjoyed the experiences and our time together and reconnected as a couple.There would be no penny-pinching on this trip, unlike our first as parents. Being from Southern California, many would ask why I'd want to spend the money to go to Walt Disney World in Florida when I had Disneyland in my backyard. I would say that if you ask that question, you've never been there. It is a magical world unto itself. Our first trip was in 1987, and my wife and I made annual trips until 1993 when we found out we were going to be parents.Anyone with kids knows that life changes. We waited until our son was old enough and returned as a family in 1998. It was even more magical with children. By the time he was 8, we gave him a walkie-talkie and let him run around the hotel as long as he checked in with us. At the time, I never thought that one day, we would return without children.My son didn't want to go when he was a teenagerLife is all about change, especially with kids. The next two decades saw many family trips to the magical world in Florida. When the economy changed in 2007, we switched to driving across the Western US with our camping trailer, but always as a family. Being a dad wasn't just something I did; it was who I was.But life changes; children don't stay children forever. As a teen, it was no longer cool for my son to go on trips with Mom and Dad. Then, the inevitable happened: high school graduation, college, and the Army. We had officially become empty-nesters.By 2017, our financial situation had improved, and I was once again working as an executive. I felt secure and decided it was time to reward ourselves. It would be our first trip to Disney World without kids in decades, and it felt weird. We had originally planned for September, but Hurricane Irma had other plans. We rescheduled for February of 2018. We'd never gone in Spring; we'd always gone in August to close out the summer before school started.We hit all the parks when we went by ourselvesI worked late the night before answering final emails. Then I clicked "save" on my out-of-office message. I was officially on vacation. I had years of airline miles accumulated and had enough for two first-class round-trip tickets. We headed first to Universal Studios and a two-night stay at the Royal Pacific Resort Hotel. We did all the parks and all the Harry Potter attractions. We even got a Butter Beer. But we'd come to Florida for another reason.On our third day, we drove to Disney's Wilderness Lodge. We've stayed at a half dozen resorts on the property over the years, but this is our favorite. The architecture is reminiscent of the great national park lodges. A pine forest surrounds it and overlooks Bay Lake. There is even a geyser (artificial) that erupts regularly. Our room overlooked the lake, pool, and geyser. Every nigh,t we watched the Bay Lake Electrical Water Pageant from our balcony.The trip brought back so many memoriesBeing at Disney World just as a couple brought back a lot of memories. We were a little older, but it was as if no time had passed at all since that first trip as a young couple all those years ago, except that I had less hair. One of my favorite photos of all time is from this trip. It's a selfie of us at the Universal Hotel, me in my Disney polo shirt, her auburn hair gently resting on her bare shoulders.Holding hands, we walked to the Magic Kingdom. For the next six days, we hopped from one park to the next. Exploring all the changes to the resort since our last trip. Enjoying all the rides, shows, attractions, and dining experiences. EPCOT was having its International Flower & Garden Festival. The park was filled with beautiful floral displays and unique food carts in every land. We rented bikes at the Fort Wilderness Campground and had a picnic lunch by the lake. Walked around Disney Springs and toured the hotels and the campground.It was a perfect trip, but the one thing that I would do differently next time is not have a rental car. Though the Alamo rental was only $331 for the eight days, it was another $25 per day for parking at the hotel. And the traffic was so bad on the resort that we ended up just using the resort transit. The hotel cost for 8 days was $3,697. We also spent another $2,080 on taxes, dining, and souvenirs on our Disney gift card from our Chase Disney Rewards Visa.Though I did have to take a couple of work calls and was "allowed" one hour per day to catch up on emails, it was one of the first vacations in a long time where I felt relaxed and refreshed. We didn't have an itinerary, no schedule to keep. We enjoyed the experiences and our time together and reconnected as a couple.

The spike in crime rates prompted by the pandemic in 2020 cemented the backlash to progressive criminal justice reform. In the years that followed, lawmakers from both major parties passed laws that rolled back changes to the criminal justice system that had aimed to lower penalties and reduce the prison population. And in 2024, tough-on-crime laws, it seems, made a decisive comeback.Over the past year, New York sent the National Guard to patrol the New York City subways, Louisiana passed a law to try 17-year-olds as adults, and Oregon recriminalized drugs it had decriminalized not so long ago. It also wasnt just lawmakers who were eager to make these changes. In March, San Francisco voters approved ballot measures that expanded police surveillance and imposed drug tests on welfare recipients, and in November, California voters passed a ballot measure to toughen penalties for drug- and theft-related crimes, while Colorado voters chose to reduce parole eligibility for people convicted of violent crimes.The souring mood on the breakthroughs won by progressive criminal justice advocates in the years leading up to the pandemic has clearly taken hold. And thats in spite of the fact that, on average, crime rates have actually been falling since 2021.This backlash will likely continue in the coming year, given Donald Trumps return to the White House and his campaign promises of enacting harsher law enforcement, including by expanding the federal death penalty.So what does the road ahead look like for criminal justice reform advocates?Understanding the backlashIn many ways, lawmakers are responding to the publics sentiments about crime. But as Ive written several times over the past year, the way people feel about crime doesnt always reflect what crime trends actually look like. In fact, it almost never does. Over the last two decades, polls consistently showed that the majority of Americans believed crime was getting worse, even though during that same timespan, crime rates typically fell year over year. But that doesnt mean that people are entirely misguided and that crime isnt an issue that lawmakers should take seriously. After all, the United States is a more violent country than its peers, and lawmakers have to address that fact. Its also the case that after an actual rise in crime particularly violent crimes like murder, rape, and assault as was the case in 2020, people are understandably worried and might be slow to digest the good news. Where lawmakers go wrong, however, is how they respond to public sentiments. Its very difficult to pinpoint the cause of a crime wave or figure out how to reduce crime in the short term. Responding by reflexively passing tough-on-crime measures might alleviate peoples fears, but doesnt necessarily solve the problem. In fact, as politicians try to outcompete each other over who or which party is tougher on crime, they contribute to a vicious feedback loop that only reinforces the notion that crime is getting out of control. Law-and-order campaigns, for example, exaggerate and often lie about crime trends. And so instead of reassuring the public that things are getting better, lawmakers have only been adding fuel to the fire.What this means for 2025 and beyondMajor policy changes constantly go through a push and pull, and criminal justice reform is no different. The tough-on-crime laws that were adopted across the country in the 1990s imposed overly harsh penalties, including long sentences that contributed to a growing incarcerated population. But as the prison population reached its peak in the late 2000s, public attitudes about the criminal justice system changed, and many reforms including lowering sentences, eliminating cash bail, and expanding parole passed and resulted in reducing the number of people in prisons in the United States.Now, as the reforms reverse, were already seeing the prison population rise again after over a decade of slow but steady decline. Given the persistence of the backlash, and how widespread it seems to be, with voters themselves passing tougher crime laws, criminal justice reform advocates will face an uphill battle in the coming years.Yet while public attitudes around criminal justice reform have clearly changed, some of the lessons of the criminal justice reform movement have stuck around. Americans, for example, support decriminalizing and legalizing marijuana something that at least five more states did in 2023, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. There are also signs that efforts to pass more forgiving sentencing laws can still succeed. Just this year, for example, Massachusetts became the first state to ban life without parole for people under the age of 21. That followed other states, including Illinois, Minnesota, and New Mexico, that abolished that sentence for people under 18 in 2023.And while Trump is likely to roll back some of the progress made at the federal level, theres reason to believe that criminal justice reform advocates might eventually see friendlier territory in Democratic states where governors will want to draw sharp contrasts with the incoming president, potentially opening the window for more progressive reforms.So while 2024 may have been the year of the tough-on-crime comeback, its still too soon to say that the backlash to criminal justice reform is here to stay.Youve read 1 article in the last monthHere at Vox, we're unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country.Our mission is to provide clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to stay informed and engaged in shaping our world. By becoming a Vox Member, you directly strengthen our ability to deliver in-depth, independent reporting that drives meaningful change.We rely on readers like you join us.Swati SharmaVox Editor-in-ChiefSee More:

Making predictions is a tricky business, and here at Future Perfect, we dont pretend to have a crystal ball. But we do think theres real epistemic value in putting our forecasts out there and just as importantly owning up to how they turned out. (Something that happens too rarely in the media, as we learned after Novembers election.) Looking back at our predictions for 2024, we had a wild ride trying to anticipate a year that threw more than a few curveballs our way.For 2024, we made 24 predictions in total, covering everything from who would win the White House to whether Elon Musk could actually get those Cybertrucks on the road. When the dust settled, we got 14 right and 10 wrong batting .583. Thats Shohei Ohtani on a hot streak, though down somewhat from our 2023 results. But I did say it was a topsy-turvy year.Some calls were right on the money, though. We correctly saw Trumps comeback and the GOP taking back the Senate. We nailed it when we said Oppenheimer would grab Best Picture (I mean, who didnt love watching Cillian Murphy brood for three hours?). And we were spot-on about some big international news, like Claudia Sheinbaum making history as Mexicos first woman president and Modi keeping his grip on power in India.But hey, nobodys perfect. We thought the FDA would greenlight MDMA therapy for PTSD that was a swing and a miss. We seriously underestimated how many Cybertrucks Tesla would crank out. And while we got some tech predictions right (looking at you, Waymo and SpaceX), we whiffed on predicting OpenAIs moves.The whole point isnt just to keep score its about getting better at this prediction thing through practice and learning from our mistakes. And in a world that seems to get more unpredictable by the day, we think thats a pretty useful skill to develop. Bryan WalshThe United StatesDonald Trump will return to the White House (55 percent) RIGHTI like to imagine that at least one incredibly sheltered person is learning this fact from this article: Donald Trump was elected to a second nonconsecutive term as president. There wasnt much courage or confidence in this prediction, which I put at only 55 percent odds.My basic approach was to try to use a political science model incorporating national polling, and I came up with a prediction of a narrow Trump victory. President Joe Biden was fairly unpopular, and Trump was narrowly leading him in polling. I wasnt confident that advantage would persist but it did.I will say that if I had updated my prediction throughout the year, it would have changed a lot. I remember in June, before the disastrous Biden-Trump debate, telling friends I gave Trump a 75 percent chance to win; after the debate, I bumped it up to around 90 percent. When Vice President Kamala Harris replaced Biden and surged in polling compared to her predecessor, I reverted to something like 50-50 odds. The actual race and its contours were changing dramatically, and my sense of the race changed dramatically too. Almost by coincidence, the ultimate election wound up being the narrow contest that polling wouldve predicted at the end of 2023. Dylan MatthewsRepublicans will recapture the Senate (85 percent) RIGHTI think my past self explained the reasoning here well: There are many, many ways for Republicans to retake the Senate. Everything has to go right simultaneously for Democrats to keep it. Everything did not go right simultaneously for Democrats this election. They had already lost a seat forever when Joe Manchin decided to retire in West Virginia, a place where no other Democrat-caucusing candidate could ever win, which left them with a 50-seat maximum in 2024.Then they lost Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Jon Tester in Montana, red states that were going to be tough for Democrats to hang on to in a presidential election year. Then, in something of a shock, Pennsylvanias Bob Casey was defeated by a private equity multimillionaire who doesnt really live in the state and cant tell the Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers apart. When that guy wins, you know Democrats are having a bad year.On the plus side, it couldve been much, much worse for Democrats. Despite Harris losing Arizona, Democrat Ruben Gallego won the Senate race there narrowly. Tammy Baldwin barely hung on in Wisconsin, and Elissa Slotkin won an open seat in Michigan by 0.3 percentage points, even as those two states went for Trump. If the Senate results had followed the presidential map, Republicans would have a 56-seat majority and no trouble confirming anyone Trump wants in his Cabinet. Instead, they ended up with 53 seats, which might be just small enough to cause Trump actual trouble. DMRepublican US Senate candidate Dave McCormick and wife Dina Powell thank supporters after declaring victory in a closely contested race with incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) on November 6, 2024, in Pittsburgh. Jeff Swensen/Getty ImagesDemocrats will recapture the House (55 percent) WRONGMy reasoning here was that Republicans held a very small majority in the House going into the election, and Democrats seemed likely to pick up a number of seats in New York in particular due to redistricting. Sure enough, the party picked up three seats in New York, but lost others to pick up only one seat on net not enough to flip the chamber.In my defense, I was clear this might happen, writing, Theres still an easy-to-imagine world where Republicans hold the House, especially if Trump wins the presidential race and if he pulls out a popular vote victory this time. As it happens, that is the world we live in. But with 220 Republicans in the House and 218 needed to pass anything, there might not be much that Trump can do with this majority. DMInflation will come in under 3 points (65 percent) RIGHTI have not always had the best track record when it comes to inflation predictions, but this one worked out. It was clear in 2023 that inflation had started to decline rapidly in the wake of the Feds interest rate hikes, and that decline continued through 2024, enough so that the Fed was able to start cutting again.By the Feds preferred measure the personal consumption expenditures price index, minus food and energy prices grew by 2.8 percent from October 2023 through October 2024. Thats an annual rate below 3 points, though not by a whole lot. The Feds goal is to get the number down to 2 percent. I find it hard to see prices stabilizing that much, especially if tariffs from the Trump administration cause consumer prices to spike in a one-off event. But were clearly doing better than a few years ago. DM2023 US car crash deaths will again exceed 40,000 (60 percent) RIGHTI like to make this prediction mainly to draw our readers attention to the scandalous number of Americans killed by our transportation system. In 2023, according to statistics released this year by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, that number dropped by about 3.6 percent from 2022, to a still-abysmal 40,990, a figure that remains significantly elevated after a Covid-era spike erased more than a decade of progress in reducing car crash deaths. How many is that, exactly? Its about as many Americans as are killed by guns and more than double the number killed in homicides overall, though its far fewer than the numbers of Americans who die from diseases like heart disease and cancer. Its twice the number of people killed by cars in the European Union, even though the EU has 100 million more people. And the federal car fatality statistics are actually around 10 percent lower than the true number of Americans killed by cars because they exclude some cases, including crashes on private roads and parking lots. If todays rates remained steady, a rough estimate would suggest that about 1 percent of all Americans would be killed by cars a stunningly high cost of admission into our car-dependent society. Marina BolotnikovaThe worldNetanyahu will be unseated as Israeli prime minister (75 percent) WRONG I almost always predict that Netanyahu will stay in power, but I made an exception when writing last years predictions because the Israeli public was so incredibly furious at him after Hamass October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Polls were showing that voters wanted him out by a wide margin. I figured if ever there was a time when he could be pushed out, this was it. But even this wasnt enough. Israel has a parliamentary system, where governments typically form on the basis of coalitions. Netanyahu is really, really good at pacifying his allies in the governing coalition and they have kept him in power. Sigal SamuelThe world will be hotter in 2024 than it was in 2023 (80 percent) RIGHTClimate change is very obviously making its effects felt. This summer was the hottest on record globally. By November, scientists said this year is virtually certain to break 2023s record. They also noted that 2024 marks the first year that Earth is more than 1.5 degrees Celsius hotter than in the pre-industrial period. Sadly, this prediction was a pretty solid bet: You can make it every year and youll get it right about 80 percent of the time. As my colleague Kelsey Piper has noted, This is based on looking at the last 25 years of atmospheric temperature data: On average, in four out of five years, this prediction would be right. SSNarendra Modi will remain as prime minister of India after the countrys 2024 elections (85 percent) RIGHTModi secured a third straight term as Indias prime minister after this springs massive elections, which saw over 640 million voters turn out. Its an achievement equaled only by Indias founding prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and one that was about as easy to predict as any outcome in this record-breaking year of global elections. Modi rolled into the elections with an approval rating in the mid-70s, or roughly twice as high as Bidens popularity around the same time. In a year when incumbent leaders around the world fell in election after election, Modi and his BJP party were a sure thing so much so that my only regret was not choosing a probability of 99 percent.Even so, this election did not turn out the way many prognosticators expected, myself included. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance secured a majority in Parliament with 293 seats, but that was well short of the 400 seats the alliance was shooting for. And the BJP itself only won 240 seats, a significant drop from the 303 seats it had won in the previous election. As a result, the party lost its solo majority in the lower house of parliament for the first time in 10 years.As my colleague Josh Keating wrote, the results were bad for Modi but good for India as a whole, showing that the worlds biggest democracy remains a democracy. An overwhelming victory would have fed into Modis growing authoritarian inclinations, which were on display this year as the Indian government attacked critics at home and abroad including in the US. India was a rare example in 2024 of the people successfully pushing back against a would-be autocrat. BWClaudia Sheinbaum will become Mexicos first female president (90 percent) RIGHTThere was no courage in the prediction that the massively popular, but term-limited, left-wing President Andrs Manuel Lopz Obrador (AMLO) would be succeeded by his protge, Claudia Sheinbaum, a past mayor of Mexico City and climate scientist. The polling, even that early on, showed Sheinbaum with a massive lead over challenger Xchitl Glvez, an indication of both Sheinbaums talent and the popularity of AMLO and his Morena party.Sheinbaums election was historic: She is not only the first woman elected president of Mexico, but the first Jewish person and (to the best of my knowledge) the first scientist. Climate advocates shouldnt be too sanguine, though. Despite her professional background, Sheinbaum has no interest in shrinking the popular state-owned petroleum sector. DMMexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. Stephania Corpi/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesUkraine will not break the land bridge between Donbas and Crimea (70 percent) RIGHTAfter the chaos of 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and 2023, when Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner Group of mercenaries mutinied and nearly took Moscow, 2024 was a less momentous year in the war. There were major shifts, to be sure: Ukraine seized part of the Kursk region in Russia, giving it Russian land it might be able to trade for Ukrainian territory now under Russian occupation, and North Korea sent troops to the front line, signaling both that Russia has serious allies in the war and that its desperate enough to call upon them.But there were no major battlefield breakthroughs, and one of the biggest goals of the Ukrainian military (splitting Russian troops on the Crimean peninsula from troops in the Donbas, the east of Ukraine) did not come to pass. Here is the map of military control I used in last years predictions:Esri/USGSThis is what the map looks like today:Esri/USGSIf you look carefully, you can see some modest differences between the maps. But overall, theyre nearly identical. The lines of control havent moved much in the past year, and with Trump ascending to office and seemingly hostile to extending aid to the Ukrainian military, the future is looking rather grim for Ukrainians defending their sovereignty. DMScience and technologyThe FDA will approve MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD (85 percent) WRONGI dont feel too bummed about having erred in my prediction here because the FDAs rejection came as a surprise to almost everyone involved. When I made this prediction a year ago, patients, therapists, and policymakers alike were anticipating that Lykos Therapeutics, the company trying to get MDMA-assisted therapy approved, would be successful. After all, Lykos had collaborated with the FDA on the trial design, and the latter had signed off on the methodology. But in March, a report raised fresh concerns about the trial design and unreported adverse events. In May and June, more researchers and advocates started to sound the alarm not just about the psychedelic part of psychedelic-assisted therapy but about the therapy part. Some went so far as to accuse Lykos of being a therapy cult, one with a style that could increase risk to patients. Ultimately, the FDA responded to this new information by deciding not to approve Lykoss application. SSOpenAI will release ChatGPT-5 by the end of November 2024 (75 percent) WRONGDid OpenAI release a whole lot of stuff in 2024? It sure did so much so that the company decided to rebrand 12 days during the holiday season this December as Shipmas, releasing everything from ChatGPT Pro (a $200/month plan that includes unlimited access to its top model OpenAI o1) to its video creation model Sora to something called Santa mode. The blizzard of product shipping one matched by competitors like Google and Meta is a sign of what my colleague Kelsey Piper identified as a shift in AI, away from a single-minded focus on advancing technical progress and toward creating products that people will actually be able to use (and even more importantly, given how expensive frontier AI work is, actually buy). It came as concerns were growing over whether AI was hitting a scaling wall and AI companies were hitting peak data.But as I wrote last year, for the purposes of this prediction, OpenAI will need to release a product called ChatGPT-5 no ChatGPT-4.5 Turbo or whatever. Whether because it was running out of data or because it didnt want to lock itself into ever-escalating model versions, OpenAI did not. Ill take the L. BW Starship will complete a launch without either stage exploding (65 percent) RIGHT2024 was a banner year for SpaceXs Starship, which saw four test launches. The first in March is a difficult case for my prediction: While the launch itself was successful, the booster stage burned up while hurtling back to the ocean and the ship itself appears to have disintegrated at some point. I predicted that neither stage would explode, and its hard to know if either did in this test. They certainly didnt operate the way SpaceX had hoped.Luckily for the company, and for my prediction, its three subsequent launches were all smashing successes. In its June 6 launch, the booster and second stage splashed down, intact, in the Gulf of Mexico and Indian Ocean respectively. The November 19 launch, viewed in person by SpaceX founder Elon Musks political ally Donald Trump, got the same results. But the one for the history books came on October 13, when the booster stage returned not to the Gulf of Mexico but to the very same launchpad in Texas from whence it came, where it was caught by two massive mechanical chopsticks.Whatever else you think about Musk and I think a lot of negative things that was a fairly awe-inspiring achievement, and easily met my prediction that the Starship project would notch major successes this year. DMFewer than 1,000 Cybertrucks will be delivered to customers (60 percent) WRONGI biffed this one pretty bad. For quarters one through three of 2024, Cybertruck sales totaled 28,250 in the US. Anecdotally, they seem to be everywhere in Washington, DC.My rationale was that the extremely unusual design of the truck, complete with a metal rather than painted exterior and a truly massive windshield, would prove challenging to produce at scale. Moreover, Tesla tends to operate with extreme delays, which made me pessimistic that it would meet its timelines for the vehicle.Ultimately, though, its a company with a lot of experience building EVs at scale, and the Cybertruck proved to be no exception. I did predict, however, that the nearly 4-foot monowiper used on the windshield would break down immediately in inclement weather. Guess what? Tesla had to launch a recall in June over exactly this. DMA Tesla Cybertruck. Anadolu via Getty ImagesWaymo will expand to a new city (80 percent) RIGHTThe industry leader on self-driving cars, a sister company to Google, entered the year operating in San Francisco and Phoenix but had announced plans to expand to Los Angeles and Austin. The latter city has seen testing among Waymos own employees but is not yet available to the general public through either the Waymo One app or Uber (which has partnered with Waymo in Phoenix).In Los Angeles, however, driverless taxi rides are now widely available: In March, Waymo started letting Angelenos off its waitlist so they could hail rides, and as of November 12, anyone in LA County can use the service, without any waitlist. That fits my prediction that at least one city would see driverless rides become widely accessible the way they already were in SF and Phoenix. DMAnimal welfareAntibiotics sales for farmed animals will increase at least 1 percent in 2023 (65 percent) WRONGMost antibiotics sold in the US dont go to hospitals or pharmacies, but to farms. These antibiotics are used to make animals grow faster and keep them alive in overcrowded, unsanitary factory farms, and theyve given rise to new antibiotic-resistant superbugs. When humans fall ill from these superbugs, the typical course of antibiotics may not do the trick to heal them. Former Future Perfect fellow Miranda Dixon-Luinenburg called the growth in antibiotic resistance a hidden epidemic. Tracking the amount of antibiotics sold to meat producers is a good proxy for understanding whether were backsliding or making progress on this epidemic, and last year, I predicted antibiotic sales for livestock would have increased by 1 percent in 2023. Instead, they went down by 2 percent. It makes sense that they declined because beef production decreased by almost 5 percent, and cattle account for around 40 percent of livestock antibiotic sales, while pork production remained stable. (I predicted 2023 sales because data is delayed by about a year.)I more or less knew this would happen, as the US Department of Agriculture predicted decreased beef production, and theyre usually right about these things. Nevertheless, I ignored common sense and predicted livestock antibiotic sales would increase because they had been on the rise for the previous five years. Its a mistake to assume that trend lines will always continue, and a lesson Ill incorporate into future predictions. Kenny TorrellaOatlys stock price will not exceed $5 in 2023 (60 percent) RIGHTSadly, I was right on this one. Oatlys stock has remained below $1.40 all year, hitting a low of just 61 cents in mid-November (it peaked at nearly $29 per share in the summer of 2021). Its been a long fall from grace for the company that single-handedly made oat milk cool, moving it from the fringes of the dairy aisle to seemingly every coffee shop menu in America. As I wrote about last year, the company has been beset by manufacturing problems and an onslaught of imitators. And it just hit another roadblock: In early December, a UK judge decided that Oatly cant use the word milk on its products after a UK dairy trade group sued the company over the matter. Its part of a larger trend of the livestock industrys effort to restrict how plant-based companies can market their products. In brighter news, the company recently reported its third-quarter revenue was up about 10 percent compared to 2023, with growth in the main regions in which it operates. Despite a flagging stock price, Oatly is down but not out. KT45 percent of the US egg supply will be cage-free by late November (70 percent) WRONGThe US egg industry is still headed toward a cage-free future, but in 2024, it moved slower in that direction than I thought it would. Instead of amounting to 45 percent of the egg supply, cage-free reached 40.3 percent, just a 1.5 percent increase from late 2023.I was confident it would reach 45 percent for three reasons: Since 2019, the share of egg-laying hens raised cage-free had been growing by about 5 percent annually, several states had cage-free laws banning the sale and production of caged eggs going into effect in 2024, and many large food companies had committed to a 100 percent cage-free egg supply by 2025.Why was I so off? I likely discounted the impact the bird flu has had on the US egg industry; this year, the virus has resulted in the mass killing of 44.1 million hens as of mid-December more than double that of 2023. I was also overconfident on corporate progress; according to the animal protection group the Humane League, many large food companies are behind on fulfilling their cage-free pledges. Lastly, I probably overestimated the impact of the 2024 state laws in Nevada, Oregon, and Washington; each have small egg industries and relatively small populations.We might see the pace of progress accelerate in 2025: The states implementing cage-free laws next year Michigan and Colorado have a slightly bigger combined population than the three states from last year and, more importantly, they have much bigger egg industries. Meanwhile, the countrys largest egg producer, Cal-Maine, will have a number of new cage-free farms going online in summer 2025. But the ongoing bird flu outbreak combined with the unpredictability of corporate pledges could shift the trajectory. KTRows of chickens in battery cages feed at an egg laying poultry farm in Ranga Reddy district, Telangana, India, on November 7, 2015. Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesMore than 20 million poultry birds will be culled due to bird flu (60 percent) RIGHTI hate that this is true, but I was right on this one two times over. More than 40 million chickens and turkeys were killed in the poultry industrys H5N1 bird flu outbreak. And thats just this year since the outbreak began in early 2022, over 120 million have been culled.Most of those are not killed by the avian flu itself; rather, any time theres a single detection of the disease at a poultry facility, all of the birds are exterminated, often with gruesome methods, like literally overheating them to death with industrial heaters. Three years into this never-ending nightmare, both the factory farm industry and animal advocates are faced with the reality that the bird flu may be here to stay. And one disturbing development we couldnt have predicted last year: H5N1 is now pervasive in another farm animal species, dairy cows, across the country. Next year, I think this disease will keep surprising us. MBMore animal rights activists will be sentenced to jail or prison (40 percent) WRONG My reasoning here was based on criminal trials being incredibly unpredictable so while I thought it was more likely that at least one animal rights activist would be incarcerated than any other single outcome, I put the probability at less than 50 percent. The prediction was mostly a product of recency bias: Barely a month before we made our 2024 predictions, Wayne Hsiung, one of the most prominent US animal rights activists and a co-founder of the group Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), was convicted and sentenced to jail for his involvement in actions at two California factory farms. DxE activists have run many similar actions over the last decade, employing a strategy they call open rescue, in which they enter factory farms and other places where animals are exploited, remove a few animals and take them to live at a sanctuary, and invite confrontation with the criminal legal system. The first few criminal cases I covered involving the group ended in either dismissals or miraculous acquittals. But Hsiungs 2023 jail sentence made it feel like the bill was coming due. This year, I suspected that a long-awaited DxE court case, involving the rescue of three beagles from a company that breeds them for animal testing, would end in prison time because I knew it would be harder for the activists to make a legal argument for acquittal than in farm animal cases. But sure enough, the case was dismissed shortly before trial. More DxE trials are scheduled for next year, but now I know better than to try to predict the outcome. MBCulture and sportsBillie Eilish will win a Grammy for What Was I Made For? (90 percent) RIGHT This was a big year for Billie! I didnt predict her new album or extensive world tour, but its not rocket science to know that the academy loves her work. With a previous win for the James Bond theme she did back in 2020, the Song of the Year award was a shoo-in. This years Future Perfect 50 honoree and superstar is only missing a Tony and an Emmy for that sweet, sweet EGOT status. Izzie RamirezBillie Eilish accepts a Grammy for the song What Was I Made For? Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty ImagesOne of the Kardashian-Jenners will appear in a Schiaparelli dress for the Met Gala (60 percent) WRONGI was wrong on this one it wound up being Jennifer Lopez who looked beautiful in Schiaparelli. Whichever Kardashian-Jenner decided to read this and prove me wrong: noted. But honestly its better this way. J. Lo was a co-chair for the event alongside fashion darling Zendaya, so she needed the extra zhuzh. IROppenheimer will win Best Picture at the 2024 Academy Awards (70 percent) RIGHTWhat did I write last year? The Academy loves biopics, it loves period pieces, and for some reason, it weirdly loves modern films that feature black-and-white scenes. To no ones surprise, Oppenheimer ran away with the show at the 96th Academy Awards, winning seven Oscars, including Best Actor for Cillian Murphy, Best Director for Christopher Nolan, and yes, Best Picture. Hot dog!So, since explaining why something we knew would happen happened is pretty boring, Im going to instead discuss an all-time-great Oppenheimer-related query posted on the subreddit r/NoStupidQuestions:Well, Rafe_Cameron_OBX, is it weird that your boyfriend watches Oppenheimer for as much as 15 hours a week? I think it depends on a few things. Does he obsessively watch and rewatch the bravura scene of the Trinity test? Has he started mumbling something about being death, destroyer of worlds in his sleep? (Assuming he sleeps.) You say he always makes time for you, which is great, but does he insist on reciting lines from the Bhagavad Gita when hes, uh, making time?While Im hesitant to interfere in another persons relationship, if the answer to any of these questions is yes, I strongly suggest you drop him immediately. Im worried that if he doesnt get treatment he may progress to a more advanced stage of Christopher Nolanism and start making you watch Interstellar three to five times a week. BWYou dont have to be Bill James to know that two-way baseball super-duper megastar Shohei Ohtani had a pretty good year in 2024, his first with the Los Angeles Dodgers, even though an elbow injury kept him from pitching. He hit .310, good for fifth in the majors. He recorded 130 RBIs (second in the majors) and had an OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage, the gold standard hitting stat) of 1.036, also good for second in baseball. He became the first player in major league history to hit more than 50 homers and steal more than 50 bases, becoming the only player in the 50/50 club. On September 19, he had what many people consider the single best offensive game in the 121-year history of Major League Baseball, going 6-for-6 with three home runs, two doubles, 10 RBIs, and two stolen bases. Oh, and he went on to win a championship, too.The one thing Ohtani did not do is the one thing I predicted he would do: lead the major leagues in home runs in 2024. Ohtani mashed 54 taters, which would have been good enough to at least tie for the majors lead in all but three of the past 24 seasons. Unfortunately, very big boy Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees took the crown this season with 58 home runs. Ill admit, my mistake here was forgetting that as spectacular as Ohtani is across the board in baseball, the 6-foot-7, 282-pound Judge is really, really good at mashing dingers, at least in the regular season. He flamed out in his championship series against Ohtanis Dodgers, going 4-for-18 with just one homer and three RBIs, enraging Yankees fans across the country. So even though my prediction failed, Id say advantage: Ohtani. BW Youve read 1 article in the last monthHere at Vox, we're unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country.Our mission is to provide clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to stay informed and engaged in shaping our world. By becoming a Vox Member, you directly strengthen our ability to deliver in-depth, independent reporting that drives meaningful change.We rely on readers like you join us.Swati SharmaVox Editor-in-ChiefSee More:

A render based on 'leaks' of the Nintendo Switch 2 is doing the rounds online, and could be the closest we'll get to knowing what the system looks like before Nintendo reveals itTech11:11, 30 Dec 2024Nintendo Switch 2 is coming, but when?Amid our list of the biggest gaming releases for 2025, there's one piece of hardware the Nintendo Switch 2.A recent leak seemingly confirmed the name, and one Reddit user claims to have got their hands on the hardware early, meaning the follow-up to one of the best-selling consoles of all time is coming into focus.Now, one render doing the rounds online might give us our closest look at what Nintendo's new system could look like, and while it's not massively different from the current iteration, it's getting people talking just as one site has put a release date on the system.Content cannot be displayed without consentPosting on X (formerly Twitter), user Ely has shared a quartet of pictures showing the Switch 2 render, its updated Joy-Con controllers and the included dock.It's in the dark grey colour that was available at the launch of the first Switch, which has been reported to be one of the options at launch of the new system, and it looks like its display is more visible than the current Switch when docked.Is this the Nintendo Switch 2?(Image: @KirPinkFury/X)Ely's post (translated via X) caveats that some of the design elements are speculative as they've not been included in any prior leaks, including the back cover of the dock, but it's certainly a looker.The render comes around the same time that an Italian site has claimed that a "very reliable source" says the Switch 2 will launch on March 28, 2025. That'd put it just past the eight year anniversary of the last console.UAGNA claims the source expects accessories from third-parties to arrive on that same day, but given Nintendo hasn't even revealed the system yet we're skeptical at best. Still, we'll be sure to update you if we hear more especially since the company is expected to showcase the system at some point in January 2025.Looking for games to keep you playing your current Switch in the meantime? Be sure to check out our Nintendo Switch gift guide, which includes titles and accessories to tide you over until the next console.Article continues belowFor the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.RECOMMENDED

Call of Duty Black Ops 6 is getting a Squid Game crossover next month but fans are disappointed it'll introduce yet another microtransaction category to a game already packed with themTech10:27, 30 Dec 2024Activision's next microtransaction has upset the community(Image: Activision)It was all going so well for Call of Duty this year. Not only was Black Ops 6 a fantastic new entry in the series, but Season 1 Reloaded was packed with content for it and Warzone.Aside from the usual issues of cheaters in Warzone and a surprise visit from a six-fingered Zombie Santa Claus, it felt like Activision's powerhouse shooter was firing on all cylinders again ahead of its January collab with Squid Game.Sadly, that run appears to have come to an end as the series' community is up in arms over the company adding yet more microtransactions to a game packed full of them already.Content cannot be displayed without consentWhile we don't know what the Squid Game event pass will contain for Black Ops 6 players, a message on the game's menu says "Explore an exhilarating Event Pass, where the Premium Track route allows for more incredible rewards, including the Front Man Operator".In response to longtime Call of Duty information account's post on X (formerly Twitter), players have begun slamming Activision."This is totally what the community asked for. Glad they're listening," one joked, while another said "I'd be fine with this if they put more towards combating cheaters".Some compared it with the monetisation of titles like Fortnite, but that's a free-to-play title which makes context important.Squid Game Season 2 is on Netflix now(Image: NETFLIX)Call of Duty Black Ops 6 (unless you have it via Xbox Game Pass) will set players back 60-70 (more for the premium editions), and each season has a season pass of around 10. Then there's a premium pass, Blackcell, on top of that which adds even more cosmetics and includes the pass for around 30.Then there are store bundles in-game that cost CoD points purchased with real money, leading some to say enough is enough.Still, maybe we'll be wrong and the new event pass will justify its existence with a low price and decent rewards.Thankfully, if Black Ops 6 isn't for you, we've covered not once, but twice, that classic games in the long-running series are being added to the Microsoft Store, which means we're expecting fresh additions to Xbox Game Pass.They may not arrive for a while, but World at War could be first.Article continues belowFor the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.RECOMMENDED

Its been more than seven years, so where is NieR 3? (Square Enix)It will be the NieR series 15th anniversary next year and the series producer hopes to have something new to share for the occasion.Despite it being a sequel to a cult classic from 2010 that not many people played, 2017s NieR: Automata far exceeded everyones expectations, especially those of publisher Square Enix.Its early success prompted Square Enix to turn NieR into a full franchise. But while this has since led to a modern remaster of the original NieR, an anime adaptation, a now defunct mobile spin-off, and crossovers with so many other video games, there remains no sign of a proper sequel.A NieR 3 is bound to happen, though, considering NieR: Automata is still selling well over seven years later, and fans have been given a glimmer of hope that an announcement or teaser for it could happen in 2025.Will there be a NieR 3?Recently, Japanese outlet 4Gamer spoke with various game creators about their plans and ambitions for 2025. Among them was Square Enixs Yosuke Saito, a producer on the NieR series.Saito had said earlier this year that he was once again working with NieR series creator Yoko Taro and NieR composer Keiichi Okabe on a new project, cryptically teasing it might be NieR, it might not be NieR.While Saito left enough room for doubt, his teasing comments to 4Gamer suggest hed like to share something on the next [NieR] game in 2025, especially since that year marks the 15th anniversary of the series.Id like to do something for [the 15th anniversary], said Saito (as translated by Gematsu). What should we do maybe something with the next game, or developments related to that Ive been hearing the fans expectations.More TrendingHe unfortunately stopped short of explicitly promising anything. But an anniversary year is perhaps the best time for Square Enix to at least tease a new game.Considering Square Enix itself referred to NieR: Automata as a global hit far in excess of our expectations, youd think the publisher would have begun pushing for a sequel back in 2017.If not, NieR: Automatas continued sales success certainly would have. Last year, it was confirmed to have sold 7.5 million units worldwide and since then, that numbers soared even higher to more than 9 million units as revealed by the official NieR X account.The real question is whether any NieR sequel will launch as a PlayStation exclusive like NieR: Automata did and only come to other platforms afterwards. The answer is likely no as Square Enix has decided to more vigorously pursue multiplatform releases. The very first NieR didnt come anywhere close to selling this many copies (X)Emailgamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below,follow us on Twitter, andsign-up to our newsletter.To submit Inbox letters and Readers Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use ourSubmit Stuff page here.For more stories like this,check our Gaming page.GameCentralExclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content.This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

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Nature, Published online: 30 December 2024; doi:10.1038/d41586-024-04171-xA taste for freedom.