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DAN GAINOR: The 7 craziest stories of 2025. You won't believe what made this list
By Dan Gainor
Published January 02, 2026
This New Year’s Eve had us singing "Auld Lang Syne" and hoping old acquaintances weren’t forgotten. But 2025 was a tidal wave of good and bad news, and you're bound to either have forgotten some of it … or tried. Lucky for you, I’m on the case. Here are the craziest stories of 2025.
This year had lots of insane animal stories – from gators ringing doorbells to pet zebras gone wild. And equally crazy politician stories because it’s the US of A and some folks are big mad about the president. But these are the seven stories that stood out most from our wacky 2025.
1. Taking a bite out of the law
This remains one of the craziest stories I’ve ever seen in a workplace. We’ve all witnessed (or endured) coworkers who steal lunches, fail to bathe or worse. But our friends at the big name Sidley Austin law firm had a summer associate/intern who took getting a taste of the legal profession a bit (or a bite) too far. I want you to start humming the theme to "Jaws" and imagine this workplace situation.
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According to Above The Law, "a Biglaw summer associate bit people at the firm — with her teeth." The site dubbed her the "Biglaw Biter" after rejecting several other options including, "Associate Lecter."
The site reported that at least five people were bitten and with "a faux-quirky manic pixie dream girl crossed with the Donner party vibe." Since I first wrote this, there's been an update. Think of it as a dessert.
Parade magazine said she had even bitten a human resources representative, but that’s understandable. Allegedly, one officemate started wearing long sleeves to guard against Ms. Jaws.
Thankfully, she was finally fired, but I expect her to be appointed to the Ninth Circuit any day now.
2. No, not the ‘Hunger Games’ dude
Unless you are a "Hunger Games" fan, when you hear "PETA," you think of the wacky people who do outlandish things to get us to stop eating meat. So far, meat eaters are winning with their forks held high. That hasn’t stopped PETA from making my crazy list multiple times in 2025.
The logo of the animal rights activist group PETA. (Paras Griffin/Getty Images)
I’ll admit, I laughed when PETA tried to get Wesleyan students to put up a plaque "that would commemorate the millions of chickens, cows, fish, pigs, and others who have been killed and served there as food." But my favorite PETA moment came last winter when a pair of their poo promoters tried to dump a truckload of manure on their competitors at the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or ASPCA. Then things really hit the fan.
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The dumpers must have had manure for brains because their load froze during the peak cold front in Manhattan. That left a frustrated PETA person chopping away at manure-cicles like a vision of the Good Humor man written by Stephen King. The pair were arrested, leaving their truck just like them – full of … manure.
3. Brazil nuts
This year featured another grift-a-thon for the climate – COP30. The Mother Nature summit was held in Brazil’s Amazon or what was left of it after they chopped down countless trees to build eight miles of "a new four-lane highway cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest." They had the gall to call the scorched-earth road the Avenida Liberdade or Avenue of Liberty. That’s like saying communist nations are "democratic republics." One of the event’s goals was "sharing insights and best practices." Pretty sure clearcutting eight miles of jungle doesn’t qualify as eco-friendly.
A view of the COP30 logotype at Docks Station in Belem, Para state, Brazil on October 24, 2025. (Photo by THOMAS MORFIN/AFP via Getty Images)
The con (ahem!) drew more than 56,000 vacationers (attendees) and, naturally, they needed a place to party. So, Brazil docked two large cruise ships nearby to house poorer delegates. One advertised that it "offers 11 restaurants, 12 bars, three swimming pools, and eight hot tubs." They finally made us all go green --with envy.
4. Shell station
Oregon’s JD Holt is presumably still at the shell game. Holt is a member of Oregon's Health Authority on the best practices for mental health. This was Oregon, so, naturally, when a meeting was convened, the introductions went pronoun-heavy in the most unique way.
Holt began with, "Hello everybody, it's JD. I use they, them and turtle for my pronouns," according to The Daily Mail. For those of you who missed this story the first time, our turtlish friend goes by "JD Terrapin" on Facebook. Big Ten or old ACC fans know a Terrapin is a kind of Maryland turtle. (Usually, one not known for football.)
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That’s the kind of interesting life choice designed for TikTok or something called Gender Wiki. GW calls it either "turtlegender" or "tortoisegender," like it’s a real thing.
I’m sure if Democrats had won in 2024, we’d be spending millions on turtle daycare somewhere.
5. They did the meme
Those of us who remember the BLM riots in 2020 recall the CNN claim that they were "mostly peaceful." The media went there again in 2025 when the left rioted against ICE in Los Angeles.
You couldn’t throw a rock or a Molotov cocktail without hitting the word "peaceful" in the news coverage. CNN described this round of lefty violence, saying people were there to protest, "initially peacefully." Which is kind of inevitable unless rioters leave their homes in mid-donnybrook.
The New York Times went with "largely peaceful" – twice, along with "peaceful" in its description of the violence. Reuters also said, "largely peaceful." "The View," which is never "peaceful," had host Whoopi Goldberg pretend, "it's been peaceful for days."
California Highway Patrol used smoke grenades to advance and push protestors off the 101 freeway during a demonstration following federal immigration operations in Los Angeles, California on June 8, 2025. (Blake Fagan/AFP via Getty Images)
My favorite was NPR, which also proclaimed things were "mostly peaceful." Sure, just like NPR was "mostly neutral" in its news coverage for years. Now, fortunately, it’s 100% unfunded by taxpayers. Thank you, Mr. President.
A protester places debris in a fire as Border Patrol personnel in riot gear and gas masks stand guard outside an industrial park in Paramount, Calif., on Saturday, June 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer)
6. What’s up, wabbit?
You knew I couldn’t ignore all the animal stories. The nightmare wild rabbits of Colorado still give me the shivers. The Associated Press reported in August about a group of rabbits with … horns. (Your joke goes here ______.)
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Yes, these demon bunnies were straight out of "Night of the Lepus," only instead of "mostly peaceful," they are "mostly harmless." The cottontails suffer from the shope papillomavirus, which causes wartlike growths that project from their heads and look like horns.
This June 26, 2013, image made from a video provided by Gunnar Boettcher shows a rabbit in Mankato, Minn., infected with the shope papillomavirus. (Gunnar Boettcher via AP, File)
The Washington Post headline about the infected rabbits sounds like it's lifted directly from a 1950s sci-fi movie: "They’re harmless, experts say." (You can picture a terrified family hearing that on the radio as giant, horned rabbits tear down their door.) No experts were harmed because they were smart enough to send journalists instead.
7. AI!
I found most of the career of former CNN anchor Jim Acosta more disturbing than the bunnies. But now that he’s a media afterthought, he outdoes even … himself.
Jim Acosta on his Substack show on August 4, 2025. (Jim Acosta Show)
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The Mouth That Roared during Trump Season One has now resorted to interviewing artificial intelligence pretending to be someone who is deceased.
This modern quackery featured Acosta speaking with a computer avatar of a deceased teen named Joaquin Oliver. It was just another anti-gun stunt for people with artificial intelligence best friends and lovers.
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Since then, I’ve seen such AI termed "grief bots" or "digital immortality," and there’s new software out for the gullible and desperate to recreate their lost ones.
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It’s a brave new world, all right, except that "Brave New World" was a dystopian satire. And this is, oh, right, real.
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https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/dan-gainor-7-craziest-stories-2025-you-wont-believe-what-made-list