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We’re all inured to sensationalist headlines about some disaster or another on the horizon. So I don’t blame anyone who was exhausted when they saw last month that dozens of scientists were warning in the journal Science that mirror bacteria could bring about a catastrophic ecosystem collapse and even mass extinction.  After all, we already […]

The question has been hurtling through think pieces, op-eds, and ominous headlines over the past few years: Have American men stopped reading? Specifically, have they stopped reading fiction? And is that why the world is so bad now? The most recent entry in this genre came in December, when David J. Morris, an assistant professor […]

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. Haga clic aquí para leer esta historia en español. VALLE DEL CAUCA, Colombia — From the side of an old highway that cuts through the Andean foothills, Dora Alicia […]

Sometime last spring, I decided to glow up. This is an extremely embarrassing thing to admit, or at least it should be. But this is America. If you’re not “glowing up,” which is to say, committing all of your time and money to the endless quest of self-improvement, you’re “letting yourself go.” And in America, […]

Your doctor orders blood work or requests you get a biopsy, or maybe your kid broke a bone and you need to rush to the emergency department. A few months later, a bill arrives in the mail with an astounding figure. Despite the federal No Surprises Act made into law in 2022 — which prevents […]

The deadly attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Eve that left 15 people dead feels like a disturbing reminder of a past era, one when the transnational terrorist organization known as the Islamic State, or ISIS, dominated the nation’s attention and resources.  The attacker, Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, a 42-year-old Army veteran from Texas, rammed […]

Selecting a health insurance plan in the US is a little like going through a maze, or solving an impossibly difficult crossword puzzle. It can be a morass of hard-to-figure-out terms — HMO, PPO, deductible, premium, coinsurance — and plans. Under another Donald Trump presidency, understanding Affordable Care Act insurance plans may get even more […]

Sometimes, it seems as if navigating health insurance benefits requires its own language (and maybe an actuarial degree to boot). The questions are endless: Is it better to have a high premium and a low deductible, or the other way around? How are you supposed to guess how much money to put in a flexible […]

A Vox reader asks: Why is some soap labeled antibiotic? Is there a soap that is friendly to germs, viruses, etc.? I thought the whole idea was to get rid of germs and viruses. There really are too many varieties of soap out there. Too many brands, too many fragrances and colors, too many claims […]

If you’ve studied First Amendment law, it’s impossible not to experience déjà vu while reading the briefs in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, a Supreme Court case the justices will hear on January 15 about online pornography.  That’s because the Texas law at the heart of Free Speech Coalition is in all relevant respects identical […]

For the sixth year in a row, the staff of Future Perfect convened in December to make predictions about major events in the year to come. Will Congress pass a tariff bill that makes President-elect Donald Trump happy? Will the H5N1 bird flu become an honest-to-god pandemic? Will the war in Ukraine stop? Will a […]

Sports betting feels like it’s everywhere.  Ads for online sportsbooks like BetMGM, DraftKings, or FanDuel are ubiquitous, whether on social media or while you’re watching a game — and they all offer some amount of free money for your first wager.  During pregame shows or on sports podcasts, you’ll hear the odds for every contest; […]

With the TikTok ban poised to go into effect in January, President-elect Donald Trump once again waded into the debate over the app’s future this past weekend.  Trump, who has sounded a much more favorable note on TikTok in the last year, is now calling for the Supreme Court to delay the implementation of a […]

A bitter public feud split the MAGA movement over the holidays, as supporters of high-skilled legal immigration like Elon Musk argued vociferously (and sometimes profanely) with the right’s immigration critics over the topic of H-1B visas. Musk, like many tech executives, strongly supports that program, which lets companies bring skilled foreign workers to the US […]

Making predictions is a tricky business, and here at Future Perfect, we don’t pretend to have a crystal ball. But we do think there’s real epistemic value in putting our forecasts out there and — just as importantly — owning up to how they turned out. (Something that happens too rarely in the media, as […]

The spike in crime rates prompted by the pandemic in 2020 cemented the backlash to progressive criminal justice reform. In the years that followed, lawmakers from both major parties passed laws that rolled back changes to the criminal justice system that had aimed to lower penalties and reduce the prison population. And in 2024, tough-on-crime […]

Jimmy Carter, the one-term Democratic president who presided over a period of economic sluggishness and social malaise but who distinguished himself with the longest and one of America’s most admirable post-presidencies, has died at the age of 100. He was the longest-lived president in American history. Carter, a single-term former governor of Georgia, was considered […]

President-elect Donald Trump repeatedly clashed with Democratic cities and states that adopted policies offering “sanctuary” to undocumented immigrants during his first term. Now, both sides are gearing up for round two.  During Trump’s first term, sanctuary cities refused to allow local law enforcement to share information with federal immigration agents or hand over immigrants in […]

There’s no getting around the fact that it’s been a dire year for the planet.  This year is likely to be the hottest year humans have ever experienced, with global average temperatures more than 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) higher than the era prior to the widespread combustion of fossil fuels. Greenhouse gas emissions […]

2024 saw over 60 elections worldwide, many of which were marked with controversy. It was undoubtedly a divisive year both within and along borders. The war in Ukraine is now in its third year. Syrian rebels toppled the Assad regime after years of fighting. South Korea erupted into chaos after the prime minister declared martial […]

Journalists are drawn to covering problems, and when it comes to housing, we know there are plenty. Earlier this month, I published a review essay on three new books about the housing crisis, and it might be easy to conclude, based on all the dizzying statistics and warnings, that little progress is being made. That […]

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. No, not Christmas. Or Hanukkah. Or Kwanzaa. Or even the 11th anniversary of Beyoncé’s surprise self-titled album.  Nope. It’s cuffing season. At least that’s what listener Antares thinks. She called Explain It to Me — Vox’s call-in podcast — to ask if cuffing season is real.  “So […]

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. Reba Stevens held her breath as she walked up the steps to the apartment, her then-6-month-old son perched on her hip. After 21 years of homelessness, she prayed: God, […]

When I was about 7, Los Angeles public schools shifted to a “year-round” schedule. The effect, for my elementary school, was a shorter summer break (boo), and an extra-long winter break (also, it turned out, boo).  That year, my parents enrolled me in “winter camp,” which was like summer camp but less fun. It was […]