A mysterious fedora, a thieving cat and other stories that made us smile in 2025

Even the most dedicated doomscrollers smile once in a while. Here’s a look back at some of the Associated Press stories that captured attention around the world and provided moments of brightness throughout 2025:

Art and intrigue

The brazen heist at the world’s most visited museum in November wasn’t just a whodunit, it was a “who wore it.” Hours after thieves snatched the French crown jewels from the Louvre, an AP photographer snapped a picture of a sharply-dressed young man striding past police.

Who was this mysterious “Fedora Man?” A 15-year-old boy who favors elegant clothing inspired by history and fictional detectives.

“I didn’t want to say immediately it was me,” Pedro Elias Garzon Delvaux said a week later. “With this photo, there is a mystery, so you have to make it last.”

September marked the solving of another art-related mystery when scientists confirmed the source of the blue color in one of Jackson Pollock’s iconic paintings. While the origins of the reds and yellows splattered across the abstract expressionist’s “Number 1A, 1948” were well known, it took chemistry to confirm the rich turquoise as manganese blue.

Meanwhile, in New Zealand, a cat called Leonardo da Pinchy had more in common with the Louvre thieves than the artist who inspired his nickname. The felonious feline with expensive taste in clothing spent a year stealing laundry from clotheslines before his embarrassed owner posted photos of his hauls on Facebook. Those who showed up to claim their belongings in July included a woman who recognized her pink and purple underwear.

“He only wants stuff he shouldn’t have,” said Leonardo’s owner, Helen North.

Tales — and fins and feathers — of survival

Also in the animals behaving badly category: a humpback whale that briefly swallowed a kayaker off Chilean Patagonia in February.

“I thought I was dead,” Adrián Simancas said. “I thought it had eaten me, that it had swallowed me.”

Simancas’ father captured the moment on video while encouraging his son to remain calm, and they both returned to shore uninjured.

Animals elsewhere this year were often facing their own challenges.

Roughly 7,000 baby chickens and other birds perished in an abandoned postal service truck in Delaware in May. But another 5,000 chicks who endured three days without food and water were rescued by a local animal shelter, where workers spent weeks caring for them and finding them new homes. Some of the adopters took hundreds, hoping for egg-laying hens, while others took them as pets.

And though they weren’t in mortal danger, elephants at a San Diego zoo showed off their survival skills in April when a 5.2 magnitude earthquake struck Southern California. Video from their enclosure showed three older, female elephants scrambling to encircle and shield two 7-year-old elephants, named Zuli and Mkhaya.

“It’s so great to see them doing the thing we all should be doing — that any parent does, which is protect their children,” said Mindy Albright, curator of mammals at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.

Celebrating girls, goddesses and the wise

For some parents in Nepal, child-rearing involves competing to have their daughters selected and sequestered as living goddesses. In October, 2-year-old Aryatara Shakya was celebrated as the new Kumari, or “virgin Goddess,” a position she will hold until she reaches puberty.

“She was just my daughter yesterday, but today she is a goddess,” her father, Ananta Shakya, said.

Another father’s involvement in his daughter’s milestone came in August, when 2,000 people turned out for 15-year-old Isela Anahí Santiago Morales’ quinceañera in Axtla de Terrazas, Mexico.

After few guests showed up to mark her symbolic passage from childhood to womanhood, Isela’s father posted about the leftover food on Facebook. An outpouring of support ensued, leading to a redo in August with a dozen music groups performing on two stages. Wearing a sparkly tiara and glittering pink ballgown, the soft-spoken Isela asked attendees to donate toys for vulnerable children instead of bringing gifts.

Meanwhile, some women elsewhere turned away from glamorous looks and ditched makeup altogether in 2025, perhaps inspired by actor Pamela Anderson’s barefaced appearance at fashion shows and film premieres.

“I’m not trying to be the prettiest girl in the room,” Anderson told Vogue during Paris Fashion Week. “I feel like it’s just freedom. It’s like a relief.”

While experts in September offered tips for going makeup-free, the world’s oldest woman offered more universal advice in the spring.

Ethel Caterham, 116, became the world’s oldest living person earlier this year. She described her method for longevity from her nursing home in Surrey, southwest of London:

“Never arguing with anyone,” she said. “I listen, and I do what I like.”