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Almost immediately after he began his second term, President Donald Trump ordered the military to ban transgender people from serving in the US military. Under the Defense Department’s policy implementing this order, the military was supposed to start firing trans service members on March 26, although those firings were halted by a court order. That […]

A version of this story originally appeared in the Future Perfect newsletter. Sign up here! Right now, OpenAI is something unique in the landscape of not just AI companies but huge companies in general. OpenAI’s board of directors is bound not to the mission of providing value for shareholders, like most companies, but to the mission of ensuring […]

In his free time, while working as a clerk at a local Australian railway, James Harrison saved millions of lives — with his blood. Harrison had particularly special plasma: It had a rare antibody that doctors used to make a medication for pregnant mothers with different blood types from their newborns. When this happens, it […]

Consider the transistor, the basic unit of computer processors. Transistors can be tiny, down to single-digit nanometers in size. Billions can fit on a computer chip.  Though they have no moving parts, they devour electricity as they store and modify bits of information. “Ones and zeros are encoded as these high and low voltages,” said […]

If anything is safe from the economic chaos caused by President Donald Trump’s tariffs, it’s probably gold — or at least that’s what investors seem to think. The price of gold has increased rapidly in the months since Trump took office, surging particularly since his March 2 announcement of a baseline 10 percent tariff on […]

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. Less than a week after becoming vice president, JD Vance, only the second Catholic to hold the office, had a very public break with the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church […]

There’s a bodega on the corner where I live in Brooklyn, New York, with a massive TikTok following and a thick cable almost always stretched out the front door and plugged into a Tesla. In a tiny parking lot around the corner, the local grocery store has a fast charger that looks like a mini […]

Twenty years ago, few people would have been able to imagine the energy landscape of today. In 2005, US oil production, after a long decline, had fallen to its lowest levels in decades, and few experts thought that would change.  The US invasion of Iraq had sent gasoline prices skyward. Solar and wind power provided […]

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: Today I’m focusing on the controversy surrounding Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as reports of mismanagement and dysfunction in his office suggest he’s unfit for one of the […]

Three years ago, Montgomery County, Maryland, approved several books with LGBTQ characters for use in public school classrooms. Not much else is known about these books, how they have been used, when they were used in lessons, or how teachers plan to use them in the future. These questions have come before lower courts, but […]

Over the last few months, the Trump administration has intensified its attacks on elite, Ivy League institutions like Columbia and Harvard, enacting sweeping funding cuts and even threatening to revoke their tax-exempt status. But what’s happening on the campuses of state schools is much less covered. Take for example the public university system in Florida. […]

On Monday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that could lead health insurance plans to offer narrower coverage. The case, known as Kennedy v. Braidwood Management, challenges the authority of a group within the US Department of Health and Human Services tasked with requiring insurers to cover some forms of preventative care. […]

President Donald Trump ran on a promise of more fossil fuels, fewer environmental regulations, and outright climate denial — and now he’s following through. His administration is gutting clean energy policy, fast-tracking oil and gas projects, and reshaping environmental policy with sweeping consequences. At the same time, though, there’s another force pulling hard in the […]

Back in 2021, far-right blogger Curtis Yarvin, who supports abolishing American democracy and replacing it with a dictatorship, went on a podcast to discuss how a hypothetical “American Caesar” might successfully carry out a power grab if elected president. His interlocutor, then-former (and now, current) Trump official Michael Anton, argued that any such effort would […]

Many worry that the Trump administration will derail the clean energy transition. But there’s reason to believe otherwise.

At every light switch, power socket, and on the road, an unstoppable revolution is already underway.  Technologies that can power our lives and jobs while doing less harm to the global climate — wind, solar, batteries, etc. — are getting cheaper, more efficient, and more abundant. The pace of progress on price, scale, and performance […]

Donald Trump made his energy plans pretty clear during the campaign: more fossil fuels, fewer environmental protections, and a full-on retreat from global climate cooperation.  Nearly 100 days into his second administration, he has moved with dizzying speed to fulfill those promises.   On Day 1, he pulled the US out of the Paris climate agreement, […]

Your Mileage May Vary is an advice column offering you a unique framework for thinking through your moral dilemmas. To submit a question, fill out this anonymous form or email sigal.samuel@vox.com. Here’s this week’s question from a reader, condensed and edited for clarity: Lately, in order to help with my mental health, I’ve been avoiding news about […]

Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old accused of brazenly gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson turned celebrated vigilante, was indicted by a federal grand jury on Thursday. The federal charges include stalking, a firearms offense, and murder through use of a firearm, according to NPR.  If convicted, the murder charge makes Mangione eligible for the death penalty. Mangione […]

Shortly after midnight early Saturday morning, the Supreme Court handed down a brief order forbidding the Trump administration from removing a group of Venezuelan immigrants from the United States without due process.  The facts of this case, known as A.A.R.P. v. Trump, are uncertain and rapidly developing. Much of what we do know about the […]

What should America’s immigration policy be?  This might seem like an absurd question to ask in a year when our current immigration agenda involves sending hundreds of people — including some who came here legally and many with no criminal record — to a Salvadoran maximum security prison known for human rights abuses, revoking the […]

Top officials within the Justice Department, the State Department, and possibly even the White House may be barrelling toward a criminal conviction for contempt of court. It is far from clear, however, whether anything will happen to them even if they are convicted. On Wednesday, Chief Judge James Boasberg determined that he has “probable cause” […]

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: Today I’m focusing on the Trump administration’s escalating fight with the judicial branch over a wrongful deportation, after appellate judges — the last stop before the Supreme Court […]

The koala is a national icon of Australia. And in some parts of the country, these marsupials — known for their fluffy ears, adorable clingy babies, and diet of eucalyptus leaves — are endangered. In the last two decades, their population size in some areas has dropped by half. It may seem odd, then, that […]