Did pandemic shutdowns make music sound different? Without concerts, parties, and (for many people) commutes, some of the best venues for enjoying the art form vanished. But isolation and panic gave music a more urgent job to do: help people survive. Here are the albums that made 2020 bearable.

Georgia Democrats are in a door-knocking, lit-dropping frenzy. Many of them are focused on turning out voters in the upper-middle-class neighborhoods of suburban Atlanta—the voters who helped flip the state to Joe Biden in November, and who are widely considered the key group for Democrats to reach. But not Ben Davidson. Ben Davidson is hitting the apartments.

This has been a relatively average year for the world’s active volcanoes. Out of an estimated 1,500 active volcanoes, about 50 erupt every year, spewing steam, ash, toxic gases, and lava. In 2020, erupting volcanoes included Taal Volcano in the Philippines, La Cumbre in the Galapagos, Mount Shishaldin in Alaska, Pacaya Volcano in Guatemala, Mount Semeru and Mount Sinabung in Indonesia, Piton de la Fournaise on Réunion Island, Mount Etna in Sicily, and more.

In the next few days, President Donald Trump will have to make a decision about what to do with the National Defense Authorization Act. It’s a clunky name for a straightforward bill—it dictates how the military budget is spent—and it used to be what was known as “must-pass” legislation, because no Congress would dare fail to fund the troops, and no president would dare veto it.

Bundled against Mongolia’s frigid late November air, thousands clamored to see and hear the Dalai Lama four years ago, their boots crunching against a dusting of snow at the Gandantegchinlen monastery in Ulaanbaatar. Mongolia’s officials insisted then, in 2016, that the visit was strictly religious, and had nothing to do with politics: The country has connections to Tibetan Buddhism that reach back hundreds of years—the title Dalai Lama is actually of Mongolian origin.