Vox

When torn between a comfortable retirement and financially supporting their children, many boomers aren’t sure what to do.

For Your Mileage May Vary, guest columnist Shayna Love points to John Maynard Keynes, a 19th-century British economist, who would say: Don’t save your money!

Keynes wrote that when times are tough, people react by keeping their money close, and not spending it. But this sets in motion what he called the paradox of thrift. One person’s expenses are actually another person’s income, he pointed out; if everyone saved their money, no one would make money either, and a recession could drag on and on. In the end, people’s savings would, paradoxically, go down, even though they were scrimping.

She writes, “Perhaps there are ways you could think about spending your money that stimulate your family’s internal economy, that also help you enjoy your retirement.”

Read the full column: www.vox.com/future-perfect/499442/boomers-spend-mo…<media_url>

🎨: Pete Gamlen for Vox

19 hours ago | [YT] | 461

Vox

When was the last time you played? Took part in an enjoyable activity for the sake of it, with no particular outcome? A moment where you laughed, felt awe, curiosity, creativity? Where time flew by?

If you’re over the age of, say, 7, your answer is probably not recently.

According to Mia Sundstrom, CEO of the National Institute for Play, an organization that studies play and champions research-backed playful policies, American society is in a bit of a play drought. Attention spans are shrinking, and the country is more polarized than ever.

A desire for levity might explain the proliferation of “whimsical” online content and unconventional workout classes and events, Sundstrom said. In other words, play, which she defined as both a state (marked by experimentation and risk-taking) and a disposition (a curious, creative, and optimistic way of moving throughout the world).

Read more about how to implement more play into your life: www.vox.com/advice/499218/be-more-playful?utm_sour…<media_url>

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1 day ago | [YT] | 1,457

Vox

Ever find yourself hunched over your laptop, eyes glazed, slack jawed, and stunned by the quantity of information modern life is throwing at you?

You might take a break to stare at your phone. Or you could try switching from one browser tab to the next while checking your email and inching closer to the day’s deadline.

Some people call this TikTok brain. Others call it brain rot. Either way, it feels like a distinctly 21st-century affliction, caused by scrolling through too many short-form videos and social media feeds that trains your brain to seek out little hits of dopamine and ruins your ability to focus on anything for more than a few seconds.

You can blame technology for doing this to you, but the real issue is with how we treat our brains.

Find out why: www.vox.com/life/498932/attention-span-focus-tikto…<media_url>

2 days ago | [YT] | 2,285

Vox

Meet the Caught Up newsletter, a weekly roundup of what you need to know in politics.

Every Saturday, you’ll get a brief look into how our team is thinking about which stories matter most and how we’re reporting on the issues, candidates, and elections you care about.

Sign up: www.vox.com/sign-up-for-the-caught-up-newsletter

3 days ago | [YT] | 250

Vox

In December 2020, when Tom Tiffany — the new Republican nominee for governor in Wisconsin — was a member of Congress, he signed on to a Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate Joe Biden’s victory.

On January 6, 2021, he voted against certifying the results in Pennsylvania and Texas just hours after rioters threatened to kill his colleagues. He has stated he would have overturned Wisconsin’s results too, and just this year endorsed an FBI investigation into the state’s elections.

And though the national climate in 2026 favors Democrats, Wisconsin is a closely divided state: Tiffany could beat the odds and win the general.

There is, in short, a very real chance that someone who doesn’t believe American elections are legitimate may soon be supervising them in one of the 2028 presidential cycle’s most important swing states.

Read more: www.vox.com/politics/498994/election-deniers-2026-…<media_url>

📸: Mark Schiefelbein-Pool/Getty Images

3 days ago | [YT] | 1,029

Vox

We often don’t talk about sex and spirituality in the same sentence, but it turns out they’re more connected than we think.

Rabbi Jay Michaelson argues in his book — God in Your Body: Kabbalah, Mindfulness, and Embodied Spiritual Practice — that spirit and body are not separate at all, and that our bodies are the very place where holiness expresses itself in the world.

For Michaelson, there are three key gifts that religion offers us as a way of connecting with our sexual selves. First is the cultivation of presence. Second is “about really embodying the knowledge that pleasure is a blessing.” And the final element he says that we can pull from religious tradition is integration.

“Sex shouldn’t be a random experience that’s separate from who we are in every other part of life,” writes Casper ter Kuile. “Sex connects us to the world; to each other; to the very force of life.”

Learn more: www.vox.com/advice/498586/better-sex-spirituality-…<media_url>

🎨: Lorena Spurio for Vox

4 days ago | [YT] | 475

Vox

It turns out there is a limit to how far left Democrats are willing to go with a crucial swing state on the line.

Francesca Hong ran up against that wall on Tuesday, falling short in her race against Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Wisconsin.

He’ll go up against Rep. Tom Tiffany, a Republican backed by President Donald Trump and closely associated with his MAGA movement, setting up a major contrast in a state where elections are often decided by paper-thin margins.

Though Hong’s populist-left politics dominated the headlines, the story of her rise was also about a cascading series of failures among the rest of the Democratic field.

📸: Scott Olson/Getty Images

5 days ago | [YT] | 1,896

Vox

Earlier this week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) flashed her political dexterity on ABC’s This Week when she was asked about the policies of Peak Woke — call it Woke 1, that stretch around the 2020 pandemic when the American liberal machine seemed to be at its political and cultural height.

“I have a local city councilman who has this saying,” the Bronx congresswoman said. “Woke 1 was crazy.”

She was quoting a tweet from Chi Ossé, a New York City Council member from Brooklyn, but the point underneath it was the real tell. The Democrats’ emerging left — fresh off primary victories in New York, Colorado, and now Michigan — has developed a playbook for handling any unpopular stance, or tweet, from the early 2020s, whether it’s pandemic masking, defunding the police, or the broader vocabulary of that summer.

The new plan: Brush it off. Then refocus on the present, and on the policies that will actually make people’s lives better.

📸: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

6 days ago | [YT] | 2,181

Vox

The summer of 2026 belongs to Gen Z.

This generation’s coming of age has been characterized by the pandemic, which left many still feeling bitter and isolated even years later. But lately, the vibes are very different. Performative pessimism is out, and joy is in.

We’ve seen it in packed movie theaters and record-smashing ticket sales for Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey. We’ve seen it in sports, especially in New York City, where joyous people filled the streets for weeks shoulder to shoulder, first for the New York Knicks’ championship run and later for the World Cup that concluded just across the river.

For the young adults whose defining life experience to this point was being trapped inside, the images of impromptu mass gatherings and fan celebrations resonated far beyond the five boroughs.

Find out more: www.vox.com/culture/498448/2026-is-gen-zs-breakout…<media_url>

🎨: Vinnie Neuberg for Vox

1 week ago | [YT] | 2,015

Vox

When it comes to Hyrox and its $270 million projected revenue, there are a few reasons we can pinpoint about how and why this fitness race has become such a cultural moment: People want to be athletes. It’s a lifestyle that you buy into. It’s (relatively) easy.

Since launching in Germany in 2017, Hyrox has become a worldwide phenomenon. As CNBC reported in June, it initially started with just 650 people and is now projected to capture roughly 1.5 million participants across 121 events in 34 countries around the world.

Hyrox is a timed competition that spans eight rounds; the person or team — athletes can compete as individuals, as doubles with a partner, or as part of a relay — with the fastest overall time wins.

Each round consists of a 1-kilometer run followed by a more “functional” strength-based move, often done using a machine. These exercises include: 1,000 meters on a SkiErg; a weighted 50-meter sled push; a weighted 50-meter sled pull; 80-meter burpee broad jumps; a 1,000-meter row; a 200-meter Farmers Carry (lugging around two heavy weights at your side while walking); 100 meters of lunges with a sandbag on your back; and 100 wall balls (squat thrusts that involve launching a medicine ball into the air as you stand).

📸: Amaury Paul/AFP via Getty Images

1 week ago | [YT] | 678