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Cheap goods from China on Americans’ go-to websites — from Amazon to Temu — are suddenly way more expensive. That’s because the “de minimis” exemption for Chinese imports expired Friday by order of President Donald Trump. Under that exemption, shipments of goods whose total value is less than $800 were exempt from tariffs — a threshold […]

A version of this story originally appeared in the Future Perfect newsletter. Sign up here! Last week, OpenAI released a new update to its core model, 4o, which followed up on a late March update. That earlier update had already been noted to make the model excessively flattering — but after the latest update, things really got out […]

California is rapidly reshaping its approach to homeless tent encampments in the wake of last year’s Supreme Court ruling that allowed cities to enforce anti-camping bans even when people have nowhere else to go. There are approximately 275,000 people living unsheltered in the US, with over half of them in California, and the Grants Pass […]

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. America’s federal public lands are truly unique, part of our birthright as citizens. No other country in the world has such a system.  More than 640 million acres, including national parks, forests, and wildlife refuges, as well […]

An obscure arm of the federal government killed almost 2 million wild animals last year using a variety of methods, including firearms, poisons, and traps that ensnare an animal’s neck, feet, or entire body.  Carried out by the US Department of Agriculture’s euphemistically named Wildlife Services department, the 2024 body count included over 2,000 green […]

When Donald Trump took office, he could reasonably claim to be popular — and to have an agenda that was popular, too. He had just won the popular vote and swept every battleground state. Key parts of his economic and domestic agenda were polling well. And his own personal popularity had never been higher — more […]

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: A federal judge today barred President Donald Trump from using a wartime powers law to rapidly remove people from the country, kicking off […]

This story originally appeared in Kids Today, Vox’s newsletter about kids, for everyone. Sign up here for future editions. The pronatalists have entered the White House. Last week, news broke that the Trump administration was considering a variety of policies to get Americans to have more kids, inspired by figures like Elon Musk (who has 14 known […]

A few short years ago, Harvey Weinstein was widely considered the monster against which all other alleged sexual abusers were measured. As he begins his New York state retrial for a series of rape and sexual assault charges over a period of years, that consensus has broken.  To see just how wide of a cultural […]

President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office have been a gift to a sector of the economy that gets little attention but has enormous social and economic consequences: the US meat industry. While Congress and both Republican and Democratic administrations tend to do what meat companies want — in part because those companies tend […]

India and Pakistan seem headed for a military conflict in the wake of India’s worst terrorist attack in years. The question is what form that clash will take and just how far the confrontation between the two nuclear-armed neighbors could escalate.  The latest crisis in the long-running tensions between the two nations began on April […]

To kick off his second term, President Donald Trump sought revenge on President Joe Biden, elite law firms, elite universities, and even some of his former staffers — including John Bolton.  Bolton has worked in every Republican presidential administration since the ’80s, including Trump’s first, as national security adviser. Together, they tore up the Joint […]

President Donald Trump warned of short-term pain resulting from his tariffs.  That pain has arrived in the form of higher prices — and it might not be temporary.  A wide range of products — from car tires to clothing, many of which are produced in China — have seen price hikes in recent weeks as […]

During an oral argument on Wednesday, the Supreme Court appeared all but certain to divide along party lines in a case that seeks to fundamentally expand the role religion plays in American public schools.  This isn’t surprising: Almost immediately after Republicans gained a supermajority on the Supreme Court, they started rewriting the Court’s religion decisions […]

After Jennifer French, a young professional in consumer tech, fell down a ski slope and broke her spine in 1998, she couldn’t tell you what exactly happened next. The next few months passed in a blur; she hadn’t yet fully accepted her prognosis — paralysis for life — when she came across a clinical trial […]

For decades, Christian relationship advice has trended toward regressive ideas about gender: namely, that women should be submissive to their husbands, who in turn are the head of the household. Those ideas arguably penetrated the mainstream with the rise of the tradwife and the idyllic image of the monogamous home life she represents.  Yet the […]

Just two years ago, the US was suffering through the worst stretch of its long-running drug overdose crisis. More than 110,000 Americans had died in the previous 12 months from an overdose — almost twice the number of people who died in all of the Vietnam War. But late last year, the country got some unexpected […]

The chaotic first months of President Donald’s Trump second term have made it difficult to distinguish between controversies that evaporate immediately — and meaningful shifts in American governance.  But amid the noise and a barrage of executive orders, clear patterns have emerged. Trump’s most consequential actions so far can be divided into four domains: Here’s […]

Elon Musk will step back from his Trump administration work with a trail of wreckage — and failure — behind him. Musk said last Wednesday that he’d scale back his White House work to one or two days each week soon, likely in May. But he’d already had his power reined in, becoming far less […]

Ashley Pro lived with her sister Dennice for 28 years. They moved in together after leaving their childhood home, and if Pro hadn’t been transferred to a different city for work, the sisters would likely still be roommates. Pro, a 29-year-old director for an after-school program in Rancho Cucamonga, California, initially worried that any distance […]

Should every woman be able to do 11 push-ups? According to orthopedic surgeon and health influencer Vonda Wright, they should — and, no, modified “girl push-ups”  don’t count.  Last month, Wright appeared on The Mel Robbins Podcast, the popular self-help show that tends to generate this sort of arbitrary health advice, to share her recommended […]

The Trump administration has been soliciting ideas on ways to encourage Americans to get married and have more children, according to a new report in the New York Times. Some of the proposals have ranged from ridiculous (reserving Fulbright scholarships for married applicants or those with children) to unnerving, like awarding a “National Medal of […]

LONDON, Canada — Canada’s Liberals just pulled off one of the greatest upsets in modern democratic history: going from a predicted wipeout in December to victory on Monday night. To understand why, you need to look at the signs on the sidewalk.  I don’t mean the ones advertising Prime Minister Mark Carney’s triumphant party, though there […]

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: CBS News is accusing its parent company of censoring its coverage in order to appease the Trump administration, a warning sign for freedom of the press and […]