~vox | Bookmarks (540)

Four people were killed and at least nine were injured in northern Georgia on Wednesday when an Apalachee High School student opened fire inside the school. The suspect, a 14-year-old boy, has been taken into custody, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI). Two of the victims were students and two were teachers, GBI […]

Watching Tuesday night’s finale of The Bachelorette, one phrase kept ringing in my mind: The cruelty is the point. The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer wrote those words in 2018 to explain the appeal of Donald Trump’s particularly mean-spirited brand of politics. But the same ethos can be applied to The Bachelor franchise. That has always been […]

This weekend, Israeli soldiers in Gaza discovered the bodies of six hostages executed by Hamas. The response was an outpouring of protests: Israelis flooding the streets to call for a ceasefire that would bring all hostages back and end the war, a demand that a majority of Israelis support. The Histadrut, Israel’s national labor union, […]

How did a fairly straightforward video game based on an ancient legend become the latest battleground in the war over “woke”? Black Myth: Wukong takes the ancient legend of Monkey, or the Monkey King, an iconic character whose travels were most famously described in the Ming dynasty masterpiece Journey to the West, and expands on […]

Who doesn’t want free money? In the world of video games, it’s possible with a simple cheat code — type “motherlode” in The Sims, watch a flood of money roll in, redecorate your whole mansion. For a brief, wild moment, a viral TikTok trend suggested that such a shortcut could exist in real life, too.  […]

In her forthcoming book Stolen Pride, sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild describes her time spent in the towns and hollers of Kentucky’s Fifth Congressional District — one of the whitest, poorest, and most-Trump-supporting districts in the entire country. During her time there, she noticed something interesting about who tended to be most excited about the Trump […]

If you’re a regular on TikTok or Instagram, you may feel your kitchen is under attack. It started with #CleanTok, wherein cleanliness influencers shared tips for sparkling stainless steel sinks and competed to have the most hygienic kitchen. Then, influencers got more ambitious with “decanting” videos documenting a method of pantry organization involving transferring foodstuffs […]

Democrats have been raining cash on their presidential nominee like it’s confetti. Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign raised $204 million in July — more than four times the $48 million former President Donald Trump brought in, according to new filings with the Federal Election Commission. This was enough to erase the Republican nominee’s previous cash advantage; at […]

For 25 years, there had not been a single confirmed case of polio in Gaza. But after 10 months of Israel’s war in the strip — which has devastated the health care system and created dangerous and unsanitary conditions for Palestinians — a baby became partially paralyzed last month after contracting the disease.  As the […]

No one likes it when their flight is delayed. For flight attendants, though, a delay isn’t just a hassle – it’s a lot of unpaid work. You’re at the airport, in your uniform, yet the pay clock doesn’t start until the plane is pulling out of the gate.  “I don’t know another job in the […]

The Israel-Palestine conflict goes back decades, but this latest war has taken an unprecedented toll in terms of the number of people killed, and represents a significant step back from any hopes of securing a two-state solution and a permanent peace. Vox podcasts are covering the conflict in depth, offering our listeners context and clarity […]

If you live in the US, there’s a good chance you’re one of the approximately 209 million people drinking tap water that contains added fluoride. Local governments have been putting fluoride in city water supplies for nearly 80 years. In many ways, its addition has been a remarkable public health success: According to the Centers […]

Most people are now probably familiar with the story: Two American astronauts were sent to space on an eight-day test mission on a new Boeing spacecraft in June. Now, nearly three months later, NASA announced that they’ll bring the astronauts back on a SpaceX Dragon capsule — which will not arrive until February 2025 for the […]

Coverage of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza is mostly dominated by talk of weapons. Reporters and analysts focus on suicide drones, on shell deficits, on targeting algorithms. But for all the attention devoted to modern weapons and munitions, both conflicts are proving that modern war still comes down to people. In Ukraine, battlefield deaths […]

Like 20 million others each night last week, I watched this year’s high-energy, celeb-packed Democratic National Convention with plenty of interest. While true policy proposals came at a trickle over the course of four nights, what flowed plentifully were vibes — a palpable exhilaration about the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, that had largely evaded the party and voters in […]

An event as seismic as Bennifer 2.0 could only end in a PR showdown. After months of breakup rumors, real-estate news, and a canceled tour, Jennifer Lopez finally filed for divorce from her husband Ben Affleck on August 20, citing “irreconcilable differences.” That date also marks the second anniversary of their lavish wedding ceremony in […]

Advocates say it is a modest law setting “clear, predictable, common-sense safety standards” for artificial intelligence. Opponents say it is a dangerous and arrogant step that will “stifle innovation.” In any event, SB 1047 — California state Sen. Scott Wiener’s proposal to regulate advanced AI models offered by companies doing business in the state — […]

The Israeli military launched the largest, deadliest West Bank attack of the year on Wednesday, killing at least 16 people, including a high-ranking militia commander, over the course of several days. Violence in the West Bank — perpetrated by the military, Israeli settlers, and Palestinian fighters — has been steadily accelerating over the past 10 months. Since the […]

A controversy over the Trump campaign’s behavior during a visit by Trump to Arlington National Cemetery last Monday has stretched for days with no end in sight. In part, the controversy is about the law: Federal law prohibits campaign or election activity at military cemeteries. In a larger sense, it’s yet another example of Trump […]

The case of Adnan Syed, true crime cause célèbre, has been unresolved for the last two years thanks to a complex appeals process over the question of victims’ rights. The state vacated his conviction for the murder of Hae Min Lee in 2022, only for an appellate court to reverse this decision and reinstate his […]

As California advances new AI regulations and companies continue to pour billions of dollars into building the most powerful systems yet, I hear a recurring grumble online: Why is AI being shoved down our throats? What is this good for? Does anyone actually want this?  In one recent Gallup poll, the percentage of Americans who […]

It’s been less than two months since the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and while lawmakers and law enforcement are continuing to investigate what happened, the presidential campaign has largely moved on.  Investigators say that the shooter was likely less motivated by political ideology than he was […]

Vice President Kamala Harris wants to make housing more affordable — and to help more Americans build wealth by investing in real estate. These are the twin goals of the Democratic nominee’s recently unveiled housing agenda. And they are largely incompatible. Harris aims to reduce Americans’ housing costs by making residences more abundant: She wants […]

At any given second, millions of people are liking various things on Instagram. Pictures of sunsets and sunrises, recipes for keto brownies, videos of viral K-pop dances — there’s something for everyone. But right now there’s one specific semi-famous woman whose social media activity (liking, unliking, posting) has drawn widespread attention: Brittany Mahomes.  Best known […]