Journalists with The Associated Press have captured some of 2025’s most uplifting stories amid global challenges. A video journalist recorded a call between the new American pope, Leo XIV, and his brother in Chicago. The pope asked why his brother hadn’t been answering his calls, leading to a lighthearted exchange. In Seattle, an AP photographer broke the news to scientist Mary E. Brunkow that she had won a Nobel Prize. A photographer in the Philippines captured a wedding in a flooded church. In California, a youth theater group staged a musical after a wildfire destroyed their theater.