Iceland Monitor wishes everyone a happy and prosperous New Year and extends its sincere thanks to readers for their support and companionship throughout the year now past.

Halla Tómasdóttir, President of Iceland, will confer the Order of the Falcon on fourteen Icelanders on New Year’s Day.

The Prime Minister says it is the government’s responsibility not to bend or retreat from its decisions, even when they provoke strong reactions and opposition.

The annual New Year’s Eve Run will take place today at noon, resulting in road closures. Traffic will also be restricted in the Skólavörðuholt area later this evening.

Guðmundur Fylkisson is a police officer who has specialised in searching for missing children. He was named Person of the Year 2025 by readers of Smartland. He received the news with characteristic calm, saying that after 40 years in the police f...

A TikTok video posted over the weekend shows the reckless behavior of two tourists at Reynisfjara beach, who stood dangerously close to the shoreline despite a red warning light being illuminated, narrowly escaping the waves.

The exact extent of fuel price reductions resulting from changes to government levies that take effect at the turn of the year will not be disclosed until New Year’s Eve.

The strongest earthquake in two and a half years struck near the Westman Islands early this afternoon, around 17 kilometres west-southwest of Stórhöfði.

An earthquake measuring 2.9 struck Öræfajökull shortly after 1:00 p.m. This is the strongest earthquake recorded at Öræfajökull so far this year.

A resident of the Vogahverfi district in Reykjavík says heavy truck traffic along Kleppsmýrarvegur is putting severe strain on local residents. She says it is a miracle that no serious accident has occurred and questions why the City of Reykjav�...

Höskuldur Tryggvason, better known as Höddi, has completed his nearly two-month journey across Antarctica, having crossed the continent using a kite and sled.

When pianist Víkingur Heiðar Ólafsson had completed his postgraduate studies at Juilliard and was beginning to look seriously toward an international career, he decided to reach out to one of Iceland’s most renowned musical figures, Vladimir ...

Vilhjálmur Birgisson, chairman of the Confederation of Labour (ASÍ), says that an average wage earner will end up paying tens of thousands of krónur more in taxes each year because personal tax credits and income tax brackets are not being rais...

Residents of Þorlákshöfn don’t let the fact that golf is usually considered a summer sport stop them, and have organized a late-season Þorláksmessa tournament that began at 11 a.m. today.

It is important for the Þorbjörn Search and Rescue Team to be able to resume fireworks sales in Grindavík this year, as the team has not been able to hold such sales for the past two years.

An earthquake shook the southwest of the country just twelve minutes before 2 a.m.

Valdimar Haukur Gíslason and his wife Edda Arnholtz spent Christmas Day without electricity at their home in Mýrar in Dýrafjörður. Valdimar says it turned out just fine and was actually rather cozy.

Around 130 people attended the Christmas meal at Samhjálp yesterday, and the day exceeded all expectations.

Six Christmas babies have been born at Landspítali over the past two days. Midwives at the Björk birthing centre also assisted with one home birth this morning, and one baby was born last night at the West Iceland Healthcare Institution.

A Christmas Day temperature record was broken overnight when 19.7°C was measured in Bakkagerði in Borgarfjörður Eystri just before 2 a.m.