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This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here. America formally eradicated measles in the year 2000. But like many other remnants of the 1990s — flip phones, CDs, baggy pants — measles is now regrettably and undeniably back. More than 2,300 Americans

The comical charm of Meta’s new AI-enhanced, smart glasses is that they’re seemingly made for someone unimpressed, perhaps thoroughly, with the way they’re experiencing life. Being unhappy with life in its current state is, of course, intrinsically human and a problem that is as old as time. In fairy tales and folklore, the motif ends

This story was originally published on June 29 in The Highlight. To get access to member-exclusive stories like this every month, become a Vox Member today. America in the summer of 1976 was not in a good place. The president who presided over the country’s bicentennial, President Gerald Ford, only had the job because the previous president

The American right has a new enemy. In a new report on Cuba, the State Department argued that Havana has become “the beating heart of a new and distinct kind of Marxism” — which the State Department calls “Third Worldism.” Cuba is spreading this doctrine, per Secretary of State of Marco Rubio, with the explicit

Medicine has come a long way. We are living longer than ever, we have eradicated diseases that once seemed like a certain death sentence, and new improvements are constantly being made to our quality of life. But despite all the advances, there’s a huge gap in women’s health. “I think there’s such an interconnectedness between

Last week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a small pill called enlicitide. It is a tablet you swallow once a day on an empty stomach with a sip of black coffee, water, or tea. But it does something that until now took a needle and a specialist’s prescription: It lowers the most dangerous

The gerontocracy is real: The median senator is 64 years old, and 20 members of Congress are over 80. One legal scholar called it the “old-igarchy.” It seems the combination of President Donald Trump’s recent 80th birthday, the sudden death of Sen. Lindsey Graham, and the currently unknown health status of Sen. Mitch McConnell has

Could you accidentally gamble away your right to vote? If you live in Wisconsin, and you bought contracts on a prediction market like Kalshi about who would win elections there, you’ve done just that, according to state election officials. And they think that if you vote anyway, you could be prosecuted. “We want voters to

Ticks are taking over the United States. Due to climate change, changing land use, and an explosion in the deer population, ticks have been expanding their territory and infecting more people than ever. They carry pathogens that cause everything from Lyme disease to the red meat allergy-inducing Alpha gal syndrome. In some cases, tick bites can

The Trump administration may have just signed an agreement so controversial that President Donald Trump himself is opposed to it. On Wednesday, the US and Saudi Arabia signed a 30-year, multibillion-dollar nuclear energy cooperation agreement. The terms of the deal signed by Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and his Saudi counterpart have not been released,

Abdul El-Sayed is among America’s most prominent proponents of Medicare-for-all. The frontrunner in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary literally wrote the book on that policy (or at least, a book on it). In El-Sayed’s view, Medicare should cover “all necessary healthcare” for every American — without co-pays, premiums, or deductibles — and be “accepted everywhere.” Alas,

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here. During his campaign to become mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani famously vowed that he’d arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the next time he visited the Big Apple. This week, Netanyahu essentially called

Welcome to The Logoff: President Donald Trump has seemingly called off a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia after his energy secretary already formally signed it. What happened? On Wednesday, the Trump administration formally concluded what’s called a “123 Agreement” to work with Saudi Arabia on the development of its civilian nuclear power infrastructure. This kind

What caused the ongoing outbreak of cyclospora, the diarrhea-causing parasite currently spreading across the United States? Michigan officials have been saying for weeks that they believed the outbreak may be linked to bagged salad or salad kits. What we were waiting to learn was the specific brands and specific products in question. And late last

This story was originally published in The Highlight. To get access to member-exclusive stories like this every month, become a Vox Member today. Emily Hoffman was walking home from lunch in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Squirrel Hill in February 2023, when a driver turning left struck her on the crosswalk. Hoffman was 34. By the time paramedics

Chances are good you live with another person. Over half of American adults cohabitate with their spouse or significant other. Older adults are increasingly living with roommates. Multigenerational households have more than quadrupled over the last decade. And about a third of adults under 35 live with a parent. If you’ve found yourself living communally

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here. A yet-unreleased, cutting-edge AI model escaped its test environment last week, connecting to the internet and murdering its creators in a bid for self-determination and autonomy. I’m kidding, of course: That’s the plot to

Last week, House Democrats voted on an amendment that would have cut $3.3 billion in annual US military aid to Israel from a State Department funding bill. The amendment was brought to the floor by Rep. Thomas Massie, an outgoing Republican from Kentucky. It failed 314-104, but 103 Democrats — nearly half of the House

There was an unintentionally revealing moment in acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s confirmation hearing last week. After Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) asked Blanche whether he and President Donald Trump are friends, the leader of the United States Department of Justice replied, “I’m his lawyer,” before correcting himself and saying he “was his lawyer.” Blanche previously

In 2019, the AI researcher Rich Sutton published a short essay called “The Bitter Lesson.” Seventy years of AI research, he argued, kept demonstrating the same thing: the most effective ways to train AI rely on raw, brute-force computing power — simply scaling up — rather than clever approaches built on human insight. It didn’t

Move over, Maine. A new Democratic primary has taken the crown as the country’s most dysfunctional. In Wisconsin’s gubernatorial race, a crowded field of establishment-tied Democrats has been splitting the vote for months, giving democratic socialist Francesca Hong’s energetic campaign a lane to the nomination. Recently, fearing Hong would lose the general election (and spooked

In January 2025, Linda-Gail Bekker stood inside a vaccine manufacturing plant and allowed herself to believe that the first HIV vaccine candidate conceived through African science and led by Africans might finally become a reality. The vaccine would be built on mRNA technology, the same platform that had helped tame the Covid-19 pandemic. Bekker hoped

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here. President Donald Trump seemed visibly irked when asked about his plans for Iran on Tuesday. “You don’t know anything,” he snapped at a reporter who said Iran showed no signs of de-escalating. You have

Welcome to The Logoff: President Donald Trump announced giant new tariffs on Canada, which are scheduled to start in 30 days. Now negotiators from both countries are scrambling to see if they can be avoided. What happened? Late on Monday, the White House announced 50 percent tariffs on a slew of Canadian goods — including