Upshot: The year in visual journalism
Also: Flashback quiz, and a look back at games
The Upshot
December 29, 2025

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THE YEAR IN GAMES

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The New York Times

Flashback: Your Weekly History Quiz, Dec. 27, 2025

Can you sort 8 historical events?

An illustration of a person exploring a cube with different puzzles on each side.

Dominic Kesterton

25 Memorable Puzzles From 2025

Solve the Crosswords, Connections, Strands and other puzzles that the Games team can’t stop thinking about.

By New York Times Games

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The New York Times

The Hardest and Easiest Spelling Bee Words of 2025

A quick look at the attainability of getting the top 10 toughest words. No reason to dillydally.

By Eve Washington

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

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Ruru Kuo

Quiz: Do You Speak 2025?

An assortment of absurd, useful and funny words and phrases entered the vernacular this year. How well do you know them?

By Miya Lee and Kendall Blomfield

An animated illustration of various colored squares connected by lines.

Why You’re Better Than a Computer at Solving Connections

An engineer for New York Times Games has been trying to teach artificial intelligence to understand wordplay more like a human.

By Shafik Quoraishee

A photo of a red dictionary with a file cabinet drawer jutting out of the center, filled with various colors of speech bubbles.

Kevin Van Aelst

The Slow Decline of Urban Dictionary

As slang finds its way into lexical institutions, experts ponder its place on the internet.

By Julia Carpenter

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