Vox

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Donald Trump warned in a Truth Social message on Tuesday, the most extreme threat the president has issued yet in nearly 40 days of war with Iran.

The latest message was a follow-up to post over the weekend in which he instructed Iran to “open the Fuckin’ Strait” of Hormuz by Tuesday night or he would make good on earlier threats to destroy all bridges and power plants across the country.

So what makes the Strait of Hormuz so important? Find out by watching the video below. 👇

6 hours ago | [YT] | 168

Vox

President Donald Trump really wants the Strait of Hormuz to be opened — as was made clear in his Truth Social post over the weekend in which he instructed Iran to “open the fuckin’ strait” by Tuesday or he would make good on earlier threats to destroy bridges and power plants across the country.

Asked Monday by reporters at the White House whether this would constitute a war crime, Trump replied that the Iranian leaders who had killed “45,000 people in the last month” were “animals.”

So would this be a war crime? Learn more: www.vox.com/politics/484932/trump-threat-war-crime…<media_url>


📸: A view of the damaged B1 bridge, a day after it was destroyed by an airstrike, on April 3, 2026, west of Tehran in Karaj, Iran. (Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)

1 day ago (edited) | [YT] | 1,450

Vox

The Trump administration just did something unexpected: In trying so hard to be anti-“woke,” it may have stumbled into a long-standing progressive critique of global aid.

By dismantling USAID and shifting billions directly to foreign governments instead of NGOs, officials like Secretary of State Marco Rubio are embracing “localization” — an idea reformers have pushed for years as a more effective way to deliver aid.

The catch? The rollout has been chaotic and deadly, disrupting care for millions and raising serious concerns about oversight, coercion, and who actually benefits.

It’s one of the most sweeping changes to global health in decades — and it could either reshape aid for the better or turn it into a new tool of political leverage.
Read more at the link in our bio.

📸: Allison Robbert/AFP via Getty Images

1 day ago | [YT] | 977

Vox

At first glance, Vox’s Anna North thought the rise of knitted and quilted protest under Trump 2.0 might be a sign of the left reembracing cringe — of a softening toward forms of political action once deemed uncool and annoying (and, not coincidentally, feminine). But in talking to artists and scholars about craftivism right now, she came to think the explanation for its popularity is both more complicated and simpler.

“The news is so ugly all the time, you can’t really find peace,” Needle & Skein owner Gilah Mashaal said. “So what do you do? You find people and you do things with those people. And since we’re crafters, that’s what we’re doing.”

Read more: www.vox.com/advice/484434/family-members-different…<media_url>

🎨: Lena Yokoyama for Vox

2 days ago | [YT] | 1,382

Vox

Officials were already sounding the alarm bells in early March across the Western United States after a winter with historically low snowpacks, which supplies water for communities as it slowly melts throughout the spring and summer.

Then came the heat wave.

A high-pressure system brought early-season heat to the region, breaking temperature records in many states with help from climate change. Much of the little snow left in parts of the region melted, sparking fears for water supplies because it may evaporate or run off too early in the season, experts say.

Compounding the problem, more than half of the Western US is now experiencing drought conditions, according to the federal drought monitoring system.

So how is the West trying to prevent a looming water crisis spurred by this triple weather whammy? Some areas are cracking down on community water usage earlier than they’ve ever had to, disrupting many parts of daily life — from gardening habits to dining out.

Read more: www.vox.com/climate/484618/snow-drought-heatwave-u…<media_url>

📸: A section of the Central Arizona Project, a series of aqueducts and tunnels designed to bring water from the Colorado River to Arizona, runs through a subdivision in Gilbert, Arizona. Rebecca Noble/Bloomberg/Getty Images

3 days ago | [YT] | 5,976

Vox

Last year, the Los Alamos National Lab — yes, the same Los Alamos where the atomic bomb was created — entered a partnership with OpenAI, allowing it to install the company’s popular ChatGPT AI system on Venado, one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers.

As of August, Venado was placed on a classified network, meaning that the AI chatbot now has access to some of the country’s most sensitive scientific data on nuclear weapons.

So, what does this moment for AI look like in the place where the original Manhattan Project happened?

Read more: www.vox.com/technology/484250/los-alamos-nuclear-a…<media_url>

🎨: Mark Harris for Vox; Getty Images

4 days ago | [YT] | 2,349

Vox

The Iran war of 2026 will continue, but it appears to be entering its final phase. Or at least, that’s what President Donald Trump hopes.

Claiming that the “hard part is done,” Trump made the case in a televised address on Wednesday night that America has “beaten and completely decimated Iran” and suggested that the conflict was “very close” to completion and would wrap up over the next two to three weeks.

“Never in the history of warfare has an enemy suffered such clear and devastating, large-scale losses in a matter of weeks,” Trump said, noting the damage inflicted to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, navy, and missile program.

Trump said he would prefer to make a deal with Iran, and would launch attacks on Iran’s civilian infrastructure and energy facilities if it did not agree to one. But he appeared to suggest that the US would wrap up operations soon either way. Trump seemed to be asking Americans for patience, noting that the war was far shorter than previous conflicts like World War II and Vietnam.

📸: Alex Brandon/AP Photo/Bloomberg via Getty Images

5 days ago | [YT] | 2,057

Vox

We have the tools to end HIV. The question is whether we'll abandon them.

More than 630,000 people still die of AIDS every year — roughly one every minute. Some 9.2 million people who need treatment still aren’t getting it. Children are the worst off: only 55 percent of those under 14 with HIV are on therapy, compared to 78 percent of adults. And the epidemic’s burden falls hardest on the most marginalized: sex workers, men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs, and transgender people now account for over 55 percent of all new infections globally — up from 44 percent in 2010.

Two-thirds of all people living with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa, where external funding finances around 80 percent of prevention programs. That has left them vulnerable as the global HIV response faces its gravest funding threat in decades.

The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief's statutory authorization lapsed in March 2025 without congressional reauthorization. A January 2025 stop-work order froze programs worldwide. The effective dismantling of USAID — with 90 percent of contracts canceled — has gutted the program’s infrastructure. UNAIDS modeling suggests that if these disruptions become permanent, the result could be 6 million additional infections and 4 million additional deaths by 2029. South Africa alone has already laid off some 8,000 health care workers because of funding cuts.

🎨: Hokyoung Kim for Vox

6 days ago | [YT] | 4,849

Vox

Nutrition influencer Jacob Smith posted a video of himself cooking tofu to his 170,000 Instagram followers.

Then the comments section exploded. People called him “soy boy” — a well-worn insult — and attacked his masculinity. Some commenters said his newfound interest in plant-based foods explained why he’s weak (he is, in fact, quite jacked), made his voice sound “feminine” (he sounds like your average dude), or even more absurdly, that it would lead him to grow breasts or become gay. “I don’t even know where these ideas come from,” he said, exasperated.

Although Smith has remained a meat-eater, the response to his tofu video inspired him to start a series of videos testing out other plant-based protein sources, like seitan and tempeh, cheekily leaning into the criticisms he was getting. “I started calling it the Soy Boy Chronicles,” Smith said.

The chronicles caught fire, each video racking up hundreds of thousands of views and, with them, a flood of angry comments.

🎨: Paige Vickers/Vox; Getty Images

1 week ago | [YT] | 3,250

Vox

In 1980, roughly a third of American adults still smoked. Now here’s a figure from 2024: 9.9 percent. That’s the share of American adults who smoke cigarettes, according to data from the National Health Interview Survey analyzed in a paper published this month in NEJM Evidence.

It’s the first time the rate has fallen below 10 percent in the history of the survey. In the language of public health, smoking in America is now officially “rare.”

This decline — from 42.4 percent in 1965 to 9.9 percent, over about 60 years — is one of the great public health achievements of the modern era.

It didn’t happen because of a single breakthrough or a miracle drug. It happened because science, policy, litigation, and sheer collective will chipped away at the problem for six decades against the fierce resistance of one of the most powerful industries on Earth.

Read more about why the decline in smoking proves that large-scale, long-term progress is possible — even when the odds seem impossible — here: www.vox.com/future-perfect/484165/smoking-tobacco-…<media_url>

1 week ago | [YT] | 4,388