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A Vox reader asks: Can you explain how tariffs work? How will imposing tariffs impact the everyday lives of Americans? According to President Donald Trump, “tariffs is the most beautiful word in the dictionary,” surpassed only by God, religion, and love. Trump has also claimed, as he did shortly after his inauguration, that “tariffs are […]

The US, apparently, is becoming increasingly averse to parties. As The Atlantic noted last month, only an average of 4.1 percent of Americans attended or hosted social events on an average weekend or holiday in 2023. The problem isn’t due to a lack of desire: Most people are happy with the number of friends they […]

Just over two weeks into his presidency, Donald Trump has already thrown American democracy into crisis.  On his first day in office, the president pardoned those who had violently stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in a bid to obstruct his removal from power. He then fired more than a dozen federal prosecutors […]

“In my view, climate change is real and it is an existential threat.”  “My inclination is to take dams down.” “The toxic chemicals that pollute our air, our water, our soils end up in our own bodies. They ruin our health in the same way that they ruin nature.” Those might sound like comments from […]

We’re making this story accessible to all readers as a public service. At Vox, our mission is to help everyone access essential information that empowers them. Support our journalism by becoming a member today. Now that the extraordinarily fast-moving wildfires that engulfed swaths of Southern California this year have started to die down, the enduring toll […]

About two and a half months ago, I wrote a piece about what foreign aid might look like in the second Trump term. Reading that piece now feels bizarre.  I thought that Trump’s second term would look much like his first: lots of proposals to cut foreign aid funding, pushed back on by Republicans in […]

The first few weeks of Donald Trump’s second presidency have put Democrats in a frustrating bind. He’s thrown so much at them (and at the nation), that they’re having serious trouble figuring out what to respond to — let alone how. He’s signed dozens of executive orders; attempted serious power grabs and overhauls of the […]

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. Six months ago, young Democrats were preparing for a very different conversation. They were breathing a sigh of relief after Joe Biden formally dropped out of the 2024 presidential […]

Donald Trump has incoherent and unhinged beliefs about trade policy.   He also has a penchant for pretending to be a “crazy guy” for the sake of increasing his leverage in negotiations. This made it difficult to tell whether his proposal for an across-the-board 25 percent tariff on Canadian and Mexican imports was sincere. That policy […]

Welcome to The Logoff. Today’s edition is about Donald Trump’s efforts to purge the Federal Bureau of Investigation of his perceived enemies — a power struggle with ramifications for the rule of law throughout the United States. What’s happened so far? On Friday night, the Department of Justice moved to fire several senior FBI executives — including […]

Are the Chiefs in their villain era?  It’s a label that’s been applied ad nauseam heading into the Super Bowl, by both fans and anti-fans of the long-dominant football team. The Kansas City juggernauts will face off against the Philadelphia Eagles in what will be the Chiefs’ fifth trip to the championship in six years. […]

The classic promise of the American dream is that no matter where you grew up, no matter how poor you were as a kid, you can still have a path to financial stability in the United States as long as you work hard. But the truth is that poverty in the US is much more […]

A friend of mine once told me that “You are where your attention is.” That line always stuck with me. It was a reminder that the most important choice we all make is also the most common one. It’s the decision about what to pay attention to and what not to pay attention to. One […]

When his grandmother died about two years ago, Jebar King, the writer of his family, was tasked with drafting her obituary. But King had never written one before and didn’t know where to start. The grief wasn’t helping either. “I was just like, there’s no way I can do this,” the 31-year-old from Los Angeles […]

Since its arrival on Netflix in December, the Spanish-language French film Emilia Pérez has been a nesting doll of controversies. The musical, directed by Jacques Audiard, has been slammed by critics and on social media for its regressive portrayal of trans identity. The film has also been critiqued for its “Eurocentric” depiction of Mexico — […]

Fearless journalism needs your support now more than ever. Become a Vox Member today. On Friday afternoon, a federal judge in Rhode Island temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s attempt to halt a simply enormous amount of domestic federal spending. Chief Judge John McConnell Jr., who issued the order, is the second federal judge to do […]

The Logoff is 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 is a tough one: I want to focus on the Trump administration’s freeze of foreign aid, an issue that is a matter of life-and-death for vulnerable […]

If we are, as some city officials have said, in a war with rats, we are clearly losing. We’ve been losing for years. Although cities have ramped up their use of poisons and traps, the number of rats in places like New York City, San Francisco, and Toronto has increased in recent years, according to […]

An estimated 20 percent of the world’s population has some form of enhanced sensitivity to environmental or emotional stimuli. The feature-length documentary, Sensory Overload, explores the needs of the neurodivergent and sensory sensitive communities, and aims to raise awareness of the need for more sensory inclusive spaces.  The film follows Lola Dada-Olley, a mother of […]

Because life is unpredictable and a major expense is one accident away, popular wisdom maintains that all adults should have an emergency fund. Arbiters of such conventional advice claim these emergency funds should be stocked with three to six months’ worth of expenses. But this threshold can be unattainable — and perhaps unrealistic, especially for […]

In January 2017, Sergey Brin rallied beside progressive activists at San Francisco International Airport to protest Donald Trump’s travel ban. Eight years later, the Google co-founder sat with right-wing nationalists at Trump’s second inauguration.  Brin is far from the only tech mogul who has (apparently) warmed to Trump in recent years. Mark Zuckerberg once bankrolled […]

In the name of love, couples make all sorts of arrangements, from which side of the bed each partner sleeps on to who does the food shopping and laundry. But, according to Ramit Sethi, author of Money for Couples, couples talk far less often about their finances. “I’ll tell you that most couples do not […]

The Logoff is 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. DonaldTrump’s baseless accusations surrounding the Washington, DC, plane crash made headlines, but we promised you we’d focus on what he does that matters most, so today’s edition […]

After a deadly crash between a civilian jet and a military helicopter, officials are scrambling to figure out what caused the deaths of as many as 67 people. Donald Trump, however, isn’t waiting for evidence: The president on Thursday blamed former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a Democrat, and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at the […]