Best photos of 2025 by Newsday photographer John Paraskevas

After a 25-year search, Paulina Gonzalez, right, embraces her daughter Kaitlin Saar, while meeting her for the first time since she was taken from her at birth 41 years ago in Chile. The reunion took place outside Saar’s home in Smithtown Oct. 8.

Kathy Collins, Long Island's first female world boxing champion, in June in the ring at the Academy of Boxing in Huntington Station, the boxing gym she co-owns with her husband. Collins fought Christy Martin at Madison Square Garden in 2001 and fought in the New York Golden Gloves in 1995, the first year women were allowed to fight.

For 20 years, the Sawicki family has been putting on an elaborate display of animated Halloween figures and memorabilia outside their home on Westley Road in Westbury. On opening night, Sept. 26, viewers included Steve and Mariel Ledo with sons Enzo, 15, and Jesse, 3, who checked out the 80 figures, 49 of them using animatronics.

Nassau Police Officer Michael Hyland, injured while assisting with a funeral procession in early October, is released from Stony Brook University Hospital Nov. 6.

In May, nine months after torrential rains severely damaged Harbor Road and the adjacent mill pond dam, which served as the dam for the Stony Brook Mill Pond, residents were planning a rally near the site to call attention to the still unrepaired pond and roadway.

Shoreham-Wading River’s Keira Hammer (19) and William Floyd’s Caiden Widecki (9), battle for a loose ball during a varsity soccer match at Shoreham-Wading River High School Sept. 27.

Suffolk County got its first Greek Orthodox Cathedral after the worldwide spiritual leader of that religion bestowed the title on a parish in Southampton in September. His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew bestowed the title of cathedral on the Dormition of the Virgin Mary Greek Orthodox Church of the Hamptons.

In August, more than a year after a rainstorm devastated Harbor Road in Head of the Harbor, area residents put up a banner across the road to draw attention to the overdue repairs.

Kaitlin Saar, left, watches as her biological mother, Paulina Gonzalez, hugs Kaitlin’s husband, Bill Saar, in front of the couple’s home in Smithtown on Oct. 8. The reunion came 41 years after Kaitlin Saar was stolen as a baby in Chile.