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In recent days, Donald Trump has signaled eagerness to reach a trade agreement with China. The president said Tuesday that his 145 percent tariffs on Chinese imports will “come down substantially” in the near future.  On Thursday, Trump said that his administration is already negotiating with China over trade, saying, “They had a meeting this […]

About nine years ago, a new organization called Canary Mission released a YouTube video describing their mission: maintaining a blacklist of anti-Israel college students. American campuses, the video warns, had become hotbeds of anti-Israel extremism: safe spaces for students to attend “Jew-hating conferences and anti-American rallies.” To fight this, Canary Mission would build an extensive […]

Clubs are, first and foremost, for dancing. One could theoretically do other things there — drink, meet strangers, conduct important and possibly illicit business deals, anything really — but likely everything but dancing could probably be done more efficiently somewhere else. At the same time, while no one’s stopping anyone from dancing in other places […]

Creatine — yes, the favorite of gym rats everywhere, a supplement many of us have taken ourselves — is a naturally occurring compound that is already found inside each person. Scientists have been studying creatine since the 1830s and, for more than a century, we have known that it was pivotal for producing energy in our […]

A Vox reader asks: Why do so many people believe in astrology? Astrology has been around as long as people have had problems. Frustrated with their terrestrial existence, humans have looked to the stars for answers. A constellation shaped like a goat, an archer, or a virgin could have just as much insight into life as […]

This story was originally published in The Highlight, Vox’s member-exclusive magazine. To get early access to member-exclusive stories every month, join the Vox Membership program today. At long last, spring has arrived here in New England, with verdant leaves erupting through soil and piles of brown leaves. That means the return of neighbors who pass by my garden […]

For most of the last 30 years, the story of religion in America has been a pretty steady one: a constant, and consistent, drop in religious affiliation every year.  Starting in the 1990s, the share of Americans who identified as Christian, or identified with any religion at all, began to drop precipitously. At the same […]

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here. Welcome to The Logoff. President Donald Trump signed an executive order that takes aim at a longtime core principle of civil rights law known as disparate impact. And though he can’t […]

Almost immediately after he began his second term, President Donald Trump ordered the military to ban transgender people from serving in the US military. Under the Defense Department’s policy implementing this order, the military was supposed to start firing trans service members on March 26, although those firings were halted by a court order. That […]

A version of this story originally appeared in the Future Perfect newsletter. Sign up here! Right now, OpenAI is something unique in the landscape of not just AI companies but huge companies in general. OpenAI’s board of directors is bound not to the mission of providing value for shareholders, like most companies, but to the mission of ensuring […]

In his free time, while working as a clerk at a local Australian railway, James Harrison saved millions of lives — with his blood. Harrison had particularly special plasma: It had a rare antibody that doctors used to make a medication for pregnant mothers with different blood types from their newborns. When this happens, it […]

Consider the transistor, the basic unit of computer processors. Transistors can be tiny, down to single-digit nanometers in size. Billions can fit on a computer chip.  Though they have no moving parts, they devour electricity as they store and modify bits of information. “Ones and zeros are encoded as these high and low voltages,” said […]

If anything is safe from the economic chaos caused by President Donald Trump’s tariffs, it’s probably gold — or at least that’s what investors seem to think. The price of gold has increased rapidly in the months since Trump took office, surging particularly since his March 2 announcement of a baseline 10 percent tariff on […]

This story was originally published in The Highlight, Vox’s member-exclusive magazine. To get early access to member-exclusive stories every month, join the Vox Membership program today. Less than a week after becoming vice president, JD Vance, only the second Catholic to hold the office, had a very public break with the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church […]

Twenty years ago, few people would have been able to imagine the energy landscape of today. In 2005, US oil production, after a long decline, had fallen to its lowest levels in decades, and few experts thought that would change.  The US invasion of Iraq had sent gasoline prices skyward. Solar and wind power provided […]

There’s a bodega on the corner where I live in Brooklyn, New York, with a massive TikTok following and a thick cable almost always stretched out the front door and plugged into a Tesla. In a tiny parking lot around the corner, the local grocery store has a fast charger that looks like a mini […]

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here. Welcome to The Logoff: Today I’m focusing on the controversy surrounding Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as reports of mismanagement and dysfunction in his office suggest he’s unfit for one of the […]

Three years ago, Montgomery County, Maryland, approved several books with LGBTQ characters for use in public school classrooms. Not much else is known about these books, how they have been used, when they were used in lessons, or how teachers plan to use them in the future. These questions have come before lower courts, but […]

Over the last few months, the Trump administration has intensified its attacks on elite, Ivy League institutions like Columbia and Harvard, enacting sweeping funding cuts and even threatening to revoke their tax-exempt status. But what’s happening on the campuses of state schools is much less covered. Take for example the public university system in Florida. […]

On Monday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that could lead health insurance plans to offer narrower coverage. The case, known as Kennedy v. Braidwood Management, challenges the authority of a group within the US Department of Health and Human Services tasked with requiring insurers to cover some forms of preventative care. […]

President Donald Trump ran on a promise of more fossil fuels, fewer environmental regulations, and outright climate denial — and now he’s following through. His administration is gutting clean energy policy, fast-tracking oil and gas projects, and reshaping environmental policy with sweeping consequences. At the same time, though, there’s another force pulling hard in the […]

Back in 2021, far-right blogger Curtis Yarvin, who supports abolishing American democracy and replacing it with a dictatorship, went on a podcast to discuss how a hypothetical “American Caesar” might successfully carry out a power grab if elected president. His interlocutor, then-former (and now, current) Trump official Michael Anton, argued that any such effort would […]

At every light switch, power socket, and on the road, an unstoppable revolution is already underway.  Technologies that can power our lives and jobs while doing less harm to the global climate — wind, solar, batteries, etc. — are getting cheaper, more efficient, and more abundant. The pace of progress on price, scale, and performance […]

Many worry that the Trump administration will derail the clean energy transition. But there’s reason to believe otherwise.

Donald Trump made his energy plans pretty clear during the campaign: more fossil fuels, fewer environmental protections, and a full-on retreat from global climate cooperation.  Nearly 100 days into his second administration, he has moved with dizzying speed to fulfill those promises.   On Day 1, he pulled the US out of the Paris climate agreement, […]

Your Mileage May Vary is an advice column offering you a unique framework for thinking through your moral dilemmas. To submit a question, fill out this anonymous form or email sigal.samuel@vox.com. Here’s this week’s question from a reader, condensed and edited for clarity: Lately, in order to help with my mental health, I’ve been avoiding news about […]

Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old accused of brazenly gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson turned celebrated vigilante, was indicted by a federal grand jury on Thursday. The federal charges include stalking, a firearms offense, and murder through use of a firearm, according to NPR.  If convicted, the murder charge makes Mangione eligible for the death penalty. Mangione […]

Shortly after midnight early Saturday morning, the Supreme Court handed down a brief order forbidding the Trump administration from removing a group of Venezuelan immigrants from the United States without due process.  The facts of this case, known as A.A.R.P. v. Trump, are uncertain and rapidly developing. Much of what we do know about the […]

What should America’s immigration policy be?  This might seem like an absurd question to ask in a year when our current immigration agenda involves sending hundreds of people — including some who came here legally and many with no criminal record — to a Salvadoran maximum security prison known for human rights abuses, revoking the […]

Top officials within the Justice Department, the State Department, and possibly even the White House may be barrelling toward a criminal conviction for contempt of court. It is far from clear, however, whether anything will happen to them even if they are convicted. On Wednesday, Chief Judge James Boasberg determined that he has “probable cause” […]

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here. Welcome to The Logoff: Today I’m focusing on the Trump administration’s escalating fight with the judicial branch over a wrongful deportation, after appellate judges — the last stop before the Supreme Court […]

The koala is a national icon of Australia. And in some parts of the country, these marsupials — known for their fluffy ears, adorable clingy babies, and diet of eucalyptus leaves — are endangered. In the last two decades, their population size in some areas has dropped by half. It may seem odd, then, that […]

J.K. Rowling’s supporters frequently claim the author has never actually said or done anything transphobic. It’s a position you can see on social media, in the pages of the New York Times, and even on a 2023 podcast with Rowling herself. It’s also an easily debunked lie. Some of this confusion around Rowling’s opinions can […]

It’s perhaps the most urgent reason Democrats lost in November: The party has solidly lost the support of working-class voters across the country and doesn’t have a solid sense of how to win them back. Now, a group of Democratic researchers, strategists, and operatives are launching a renewed effort to figure out — and to communicate […]

Last year, a coterie of tech billionaires rallied behind Donald Trump’s candidacy. Many had not been lifelong Republicans. In 2016, the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen declared Hillary Clinton the “obvious choice” for president, saying Trump’s immigration agenda “makes me sick to my stomach.” Elon Musk, meanwhile, had once been an Obama-supporting climate hawk. Yet they, […]

Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian student at Columbia University, went into a US Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Vermont on Monday for his scheduled naturalization interview. But instead of being granted citizenship, he was arrested and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which started the process to deport him. In a memo reviewed by […]

Google just lost a huge antitrust case. A federal judge in Virginia ruled on Thursday that the search giant illegally maintained a monopoly in the online advertising market, leveraging its position to make more money and squash competition. The Justice Department, which initiated the case along with several states, has called for Google to be […]

Less than six months ago, after an inappropriate amount of research, I bought a new toaster for $30. My old toaster had died, as old toasters do, and I wanted to buy one cheap enough that I wouldn’t be mad when I had to replace it. If President Donald Trump’s current 145 percent tariff on […]

From 2017 to 2020, meat-free sausages and veggie burgers had a moment. Sales of plant-based meat doubled thanks to new startups — like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods — which collectively took billions of dollars in venture capital investment and invented much more meaty vegetarian products than their predecessors. The emerging sector was hailed as […]

In late 2021, I stood in a forest about two hours from Mexico City and watched as a river of butterflies passed overhead. They were monarchs — the iconic, Halloween-colored butterflies — and they were coming here from the US to rest for the cold winter months.  Nearly all of the monarchs east of the Rocky […]

Nearly two weeks since his “Liberation Day” tariff announcements, President Donald Trump has roundly lost the majority of the American public’s support. According to polling, his chaotic trade policy has hammered trust in his economic stewardship, his economic approval ratings are tanking, and his overall popularity continues to slide. The public’s perception that Trump has […]

In March 2024, Kelli and Austin Emry welcomed their son Logan, a little brother for their toddler Mila and the final piece of the family they had always wanted. Born with a full head of black hair, Logan was a healthy, happy baby who thrived in his first weeks of life. When Kelli returned to […]

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here. Welcome to The Logoff: Today I’m focusing on two federal judges threatening to hold the Trump administration in contempt, escalating a conflict between the president and the courts […]

“Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country,” President Donald Trump promised on “Liberation Day,” as he announced tariffs that have shocked global markets and set the country on course for a recession. “We will supercharge our domestic industrial base. We will pry open foreign markets and break down foreign trade barriers, and […]

Every artist I know is furious. The illustrators, the novelists, the poets — all furious. These are people who have painstakingly poured their deepest yearnings onto the page, only to see AI companies pirate their work without consent or compensation. The latest surge of anger is a response to OpenAI integrating new image-generation capabilities into ChatGPT […]

The United States and China are locked in an economic war. They’ve levied tit-for-tat tariffs on each other, and there’s little sign of detente.  President Donald Trump said in a statement Tuesday that “The ball is in China’s court. China needs to make a deal with us. We don’t have to make a deal with […]

Recessions are always officially declared after they have already started.  In the US, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is the official arbiter of what constitutes a recession, taking into consideration different economic indicators, including growth. The organization defines a recession as a “significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy,” […]

The Supreme Court’s Republican majority certainly seems eager to make taxpayers fund religious education.  Over the past few decades, the Court has slowly expanded the ability of religious schools to access public money. Most recently, in Carson v. Makin (2022), the Court held that states that provide tuition vouchers that pay for private education must […]

This story appeared in the Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here. Welcome to The Logoff: Today I’m focusing on the Trump administration’s battle with Harvard University, in which a powerful university targeted by the president is pushing back. […]

President Donald Trump’s press conference with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele was, at heart, an authoritarian political performance. This was clearest in their discussion of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man that the Trump administration seized and then erroneously sent (by its own admission) to El Salvador’s infamous CECOT prison. The two men were sneeringly dismissive of […]