Vox

Zohran Mamdani just took his first steps toward remaking the national Democratic Party.

The New York City mayor took on his state’s Democratic establishment in three key congressional primaries Tuesday — and in all three, he prevailed.

Mamdani had featured all three of the victorious candidates in his eye-catching “basketball ad,” aired during the New York Knicks championship playoff run, naming all three as part of his “team.” The results were a testament to his political strength and sway in the city, and showed again that the Democratic Socialists of America can now take on and defeat the city’s traditional Democratic machines.

The results were also a dramatic demonstration of a new reality in Democratic primaries: that a record of strong support of Israel — which Goldman and Espaillat had — can be politically deadly.

📸: Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty

4 hours ago | [YT] | 1,293

Vox

Since Donald Trump’s 2024 victory, the Democratic Party has been embroiled in a vicious internal conversation over “moderation.”

One camp argues that the party has moved too far to the left on cultural issues, particularly immigration and trans rights, and that it needs to tack to the center in order to secure its long-term political future.

Their opponents argue that such a strategy will alienate core Democratic voters without making significant inroads among the MAGA faithful.

This week, the anti-moderation camp has been claiming vindication — citing not developments in the US, but the resignation of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

📸: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing via Getty Images

1 day ago | [YT] | 1,403

Vox

There are a growing number of influential Trump allies who have sounded the alarm about the right’s direction, but steadfastly refuse to acknowledge that their own actions in the Trump era may have had something to do with it.

This points to a right-wing political machine that is spinning out of control in ways that even some of its most aggressive and radical voices recognize as dangerous.

And as the right searches for new leadership before Trump himself fades into history, nobody on their side has shown any proven ability to contain or redirect its worst impulses.

In the absence of post-Trump leaders both willing and able to address the real problems, the future of the right — and, thus, in some sense, America — is dangerously unclear.

📸: Evan Vucci/Pool/Getty Images

2 days ago | [YT] | 1,365

Vox

Did you know there’s a specific flag for Juneteenth?

In fact, it has a backstory that goes back to the late 1990s. Ben Haith, the flag’s creator, explains more about its history and impact.

Haith, a community organizer and activist known better as “Boston Ben,” created the flag in 1997. Haith said once he learned about Juneteenth, he felt passionately that it needed representation.

“I was just doing what God told me,” Haith said. “I have somewhat of a marketing background, and I thought Juneteenth, what it represented, needed to have a symbol.”

Learn more: www.vox.com/the-highlight/23150078/the-juneteenth-…<media_url>

📸: KaCeyKal! for Vox

5 days ago | [YT] | 983

Vox

The NeeDoh Nice Cube is a lump of soft plastic, a little over 2 inches tall. It comes in blue, pink, or purple, and retails for $5.99. When you squeeze it, it produces a pleasing, squishy sensation, subtly relieving the stress of the day and replacing it with a sense of calm and peace.

Or, at least, that’s what people who can get their hands on it say.

The Nice Cube — and other NeeDoh variants, like globs, donuts, and kittens — are so popular that it’s become nearly impossible to find them. The toys are sold out at toy stores. The manufacturer, Schylling, no longer sells them through its website.

This craze for NeeDoh is part of a larger trend: the rise of sensory and “fidget” toys over the past decade. While kids (and adults) have always fidgeted, the marketing of toys explicitly for this purpose has exploded in recent years, as objects for squeezing, popping, stroking, and shaping fill kids’ bedrooms and classrooms alike.

Read more: www.vox.com/culture/491330/needoh-nice-cube-squish…<media_url>

🎨: Paige Vickers/Vox

6 days ago | [YT] | 573

Vox

Are President Donald Trump’s America’s 250 celebrations a chance to celebrate the country, or himself?

The whole thing is being presided over by not one but two groups: America250, Congress’s decade-old initiative to celebrate the country, and Freedom 250, which is the Trump administration’s very own.

“I think President Trump is trying to celebrate America as he sees it, which is not totally separate from celebrating himself,” said Semafor editor-in-chief Ben Smith.

Read more or listen to the episode of Today, Explained wherever you get your podcasts: www.vox.com/podcasts/491353/trump-america-250-anni…<media_url>

📸: Al Bello/Getty Images

1 week ago | [YT] | 1,511

Vox

Comoros, an island nation of less than a million people, more than 3,000 miles away from Iran, might not seem to have much at stake, politically, from the current conflict in the Middle East.

Donald Trump has never publicly mentioned it. It is neither an ally nor a target of the Iranian regime. But as long as the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, no country is totally insulated from the fallout of the war launched by the United States and Israel, and that includes Comoros.

Last month, the country’s government attempted to raise gasoline prices by 35%, blaming the price shock caused by the Iran war. The public response included protests, roadblocks in the capital, and clashes with security forces during which one person was killed. The government suspended the fuel price increase in response.

It’s not the only place where Hormuz shockwaves have caused social unrest. Four people were killed in Kenya in May in protests sparked by rising fuel prices. Bus drivers in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, have gone on strike over a 46 percent increase in diesel prices, grinding the city to a halt.

Read more: www.vox.com/politics/491389/food-fuel-price-shocks…<media_url>


📸: Motorcycle taxi drivers ride past a burning barricade on a road blocked with stones to prevent traffic from passing during a nationwide transport strike over rising fuel prices in Nairobi on May 18, 2026. Luis Tato/AFP via Getty Images

1 week ago | [YT] | 707

Vox

What do you do when a DNA test reveals a family secret that was supposed to be hidden forever?

That’s the question that a reader asked Sigal Samuel, who writes our Your Mileage May Vary column. Here’s the advice she gave:

“As technology shifts over the generations, moral norms shift along with it. When your grandmother gave up the baby for adoption, she had no idea DNA testing would become commonplace — but it has. And as cheap testing kits like 23andMe have exposed all kinds of family secrets, more and more kids who’d been kept in the dark are making their experiences known.

Some were never bothered by their obscured origins, but discover an extra measure of joy and connection once they meet long-lost relatives. Others say they always suffered from an uneasy sense that they’re different from their siblings. Still others say it’s important to know your biological family’s medical history, especially with the advent of precision medicine.

All this has led to an increasing belief that children have a right to know where they came from — a right to self-knowledge.”

Read the full column: www.vox.com/future-perfect/375440/a-dna-test-upend…<media_url>

🎨: Pete Gamlen for Vox

1 week ago | [YT] | 691

Vox

Humanity may be scrolling its way out of existence.

Across the globe, fertility rates are plummeting. In 2023, the average number of births per woman worldwide fell beneath 2.1 — the minimum level necessary for averting population decline (also known as the “replacement rate”). And this collapse is not concentrated in just a handful of places; more than two-thirds of all nations now have below-replacement fertility.

If these trends continue, the consequences will be transformative — and possibly, catastrophic, as graying populations place unprecedented burdens on the remaining young. Vast countries will swiftly shrivel into city states.

And it’s partly your phone’s fault.

Or so one leading theory goes. To make sense of recent fertility trends, some analysts have turned to the devices in their pockets. In the view of the journalist John Burn-Murdoch and social scientist Alice Evans, the smartphone helped birth the global spike in singledom.

Read more: www.vox.com/politics/491167/ai-smartphones-fertili…<media_url>

1 week ago | [YT] | 2,411

Vox

The Trump administration’s plan to dismantle an ocean observation system vital to understanding the climate crisis and marine ecosystems would “severely degrade” the accuracy of weather predictions and El Niño forecasts, with economic consequences for the United States, European and American scientists have warned.

Decommissioning the US system, which plays a major part in a global ocean observation network, would lead to a massive increase in error in the annual estimates of ocean heating rates, according to research published last month.

As a result, the forecasts and early warning systems for storms, tropical cyclones and El Niño would degrade, “sometimes dangerously so,” according to Sabrina Speich, an expert in global ocean monitoring at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris and chair of the ocean expert panel of the Global Climate Observing System.

Read more: www.vox.com/climate/491063/trump-cuts-ocean-monito…<media_url>


📸: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

1 week ago | [YT] | 1,776