While difficult stories dominated news feeds, caring and community were everywhere this year

Good news, everyone — 2025 wasn’t all bad!

Yes, plenty of horrific events transpired at home and abroad over the past 12 months — environmental disasters, humanitarian crises, economic uncertainty, political unrest, war.

But there were also many, many moments of human compassion.

If the goal of journalism is to shine a light on darkness, news organizations also need to cast a spotlight on lightness. Otherwise, we’re only telling one side of an exceedingly bleak story.

Music ’N’ Mavens plans biggest season yet with addition of evening shows

It’s a full season of songs and speakers for Music ’N’ Mavens.

The annual series of concerts and lectures features 19 programs from Jan. 6 to March 26, including the debut of After Dark, a four-concert evening series.

Karla Berbrayer, Music ’N’ Mavens’ founding producer, says the evening concert series responds to popular demand, which has steadily climbed after a few rocky post-pandemic seasons.

“It’s just been quite remarkable. I mean, the biggest complaint we get is, ‘I can’t get tickets,’” she says.

Series continues to mine later-life feminine reality for laughs, insight

The Judy Blumes of menopause are back.

Small Achievable Goals, the workplace comedy about menopause from creators, executive producers, writers and stars Jennifer Whalen and Meredith MacNeill (Baroness Von Sketch Show), returns to CBC tonight for a second season of boundary-pushing TV.

“It’s kind of like we’re always in labour,” Whalen jokes.

Season 1, which premièred last winter, put Whalen and MacNeill firmly in the menopause cultural zeitgeist. Here, finally, was a frank and funny coming-of-middle-age comedy, with relatable characters played by women roughly the same age — Whalen is 55, MacNeill is 50 — who weren’t making hackneyed open-freezer hot-flash jokes or wallpapering over reality with euphemisms.

Peterson rink wins Manitoba to earn spot in Scotties Tournament of Hearts

RIVERS — Kelsey Calvert has enough provincial finalist trophies.

She knew it’d take her best effort to avoid a fifth on Sunday, and that might not have been enough against an incredible Kaitlyn Lawes team. But the skip put Team Beth Peterson into position to have the hammer headed to an extra end, and suddenly won the RME Women of the Rings final 9-7 when Lawes tapped her stone onto the pin.

The back-to-back provincial women’s curling finalists soaked up their long-awaited championship moment.

“We’re thrilled,” said Calvert, who lost the 2019 and 2020 Alberta finals before moving to Manitoba in 2023 and now lives in Carberry, married to former world junior champion Braden Calvert.

Family from the Democratic Republic of Congo navigates chilly firsts alongside IRCOM supports

All Clever Ganza wants to do this winter is build a snowman.

He’s not yet had the chance, as it hasn’t been the right kind of snow — although to the eight-year-old, all snow is snow.

It’s his second winter in Winnipeg after arriving in Canada with his parents and younger brother Travor, 5, in December 2024.

Clever has acclimatized pretty quickly.

Made you look: From tiny beads to sweeping statements, 2025’s art exhibitions had an impact

Winnipeg’s art galleries, large and small, played host to a ton of exciting, groundbreaking and thought-provoking exhibitions in 2025.

Top TV titles in 2025 kept us glued to our screens

Whether you like mind-bending sci-fi, high-stakes medical drama, thoughtful animation or deeply horny hockey romance, television in 2025 had something for all tastes. The Free Press arts team weighs in with their favourites from a variety of streaming services.

Wesmen’s Stewart looks to conclude final hoops year on top after father’s death

Donald Stewart’s first reminder came one month after the fact.

The 24-year-old had found ways to distract himself up to that point, but fell into a familiar state of grief as he faced a first in his life: getting a repair estimate for his car.

It sounds silly, Stewart confessed, but the process of dealing with this speed bump was foreign to him.

It’s something his dad would’ve helped him with.

Shining stage moments: Theatre reviewers' highlights from 2025

Free Press theatre reviewers Holly Harris and Ben Waldman share their top theatre moments of 2025.

Table tennis dramedy Marty Supreme serves gold

Kinetic, frenetic, incredibly anxiety-provoking, this cynical sideways take on the underdog sports story delivers the kind of out-and-out chaos that actually requires a lot of cinematic precision.

Filmmaker Josh Safdie’s sardonic comic-drama, Marty Supreme, is both completely assured and slightly insane, and it’s held together by a tricky, nervy, live-wire performance by Timothée Chalamet.

Safdie has previously partnered with brother Benny on such films as Good Time and Uncut Gems, with the pair specializing in everyone-shouting-at-once havoc. Here Josh is solo director, while sharing a screenwriting credit with frequent collaborator Ronald Bronstein.

Marty Supreme takes us back to the 1950s and New York’s Lower East Side, where Marty Mauser (Chalamet) is working at his uncle’s shoe store just long enough to make the fare to England for an international table tennis tournament.