Vox

The religious right has defined American Christianity for half a century, reshaping politics, theology, and culture in its own image. But as Trump’s second administration pushes the coalition into increasingly extreme territory, new cracks are appearing.

Mainline Protestants, though diminished, are asserting themselves, and Catholics are showing signs of resistance, a resistance that might even lead them into a new coalition. And if the history of the religious right teaches us anything, it is Catholics who are the key.

A new faith-based opposition is still fragile, but if it can form, it could redefine both American Christianity and American politics.

🎨: Nicholas Stevenson/Folio Art for Vox

10 hours ago | [YT] | 870

Vox

There has never been a moment in history when the world has been more obsessed with gay, Canadian, softcore porn.

Since Heated Rivalry (an HBO Max show about two rival hockey players who enter a very steamy relationship) premiered in late 2025, stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie have been on every red carpet and in every photoshoot, and they’ve talked to seemingly every entertainment publication in existence.

The intensity of their stardom and how quickly the pair have ascended all raises the question: Why? What is it about Heated Rivalry that everyone loves? What itch is this smutty hockey show scratching?

Vox’s book critic and senior correspondent Constance Grady helped explain the popularity and why it is and isn’t at all surprising that women, in particular, are powering the gay hockey smut moment that we’re living in.

1 day ago | [YT] | 1,178

Vox

Only a year into his second term, President Donald Trump has exercised far more personal power over economic policy decisions than in his first.

He has canceled spending, frozen funds, and pursued aggressive rescissions that treat appropriations as optional. He’s dismantled programs supported by Congress in a bipartisan manner, like the foreign aid services at USAID. He’s pursued mass firings of federal government workers, bypassing civil service protections, and leading to a nearly 10 percent headcount reduction in 2025. He’s unilaterally declared sweeping tariffs across countries and products at levels not seen in a century, raising hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes without Congress.

But the president has struggled to gain control of the Federal Reserve, largely because of chair Jerome Powell’s efforts to, in his own words, set “interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president.”

Now, Trump has escalated his war on the Fed in an attempt to get what he wants: domination of all economic institutions.

📸: Win McNamee/Getty Images

2 days ago | [YT] | 1,479

Vox

Have you ever seen a service dog at an airport and caught yourself wondering… How is that actually a service animal?

Vox senior correspondent Alex Abad-Santos found himself asking that question when he noticed more service dogs than ever on a recent trip.

“It all made me realize how many dogs traveling these days are designated service dogs, so many that there’s no way each one was a thoroughly-trained working canine,” he writes. “Some of these pooches had to be impostors.”

Read more about why more people are taking advantage of airlines’ service dog loophole: www.vox.com/culture/474750/fake-service-dogs-airli…<media_url>

📸: Liang Sen/Xinhua via Getty Images

2 days ago | [YT] | 793

Vox

As competing narratives and interpretations of viral videos muddy the investigations of the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis last week, there’s at least one thing that can’t be denied: The Department of Homeland Security’s operations in American cities are a sharp departure from how its agencies operated anytime before the second Trump administration.

ICE, specifically, is operating in a completely different way to how it has historically worked — with big shows of force in neighborhoods, seemingly indiscriminate arrests of immigrants (and citizens), and its careless treatment of bystanders and protesters.

But how did this shift develop? And what specifically changed in the way ICE operates domestically?

3 days ago | [YT] | 3,628

Vox

As part of the new federal dietary guidelines released this week, the Trump administration eliminated the previous specific recommended limits on alcohol consumption — two drinks or less per day for men and one drink for women.

Now, the new guidelines say “consume less alcohol for better health. (It maintained the prior guidance discouraging a few certain groups — pregnant people and people who have a history of alcohol abuse — from drinking at all.) It’s a major change that defies a growing public health consensus that people should drink as little alcohol as possible, because no amount of drinking is actually safe.

To justify the change, Dr. Mehmet Oz, who oversees the Medicare and Medicaid programs, argued that there was no scientific evidence to justify specific limits on drinking alcohol. But that’s not true. There is such data — evidence commissioned by the federal government that the Trump administration itself tried to bury ahead of the dietary guidelines’ release. But instead, Oz and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have handed the alcohol industry a long-sought win in its battle against public health critics.

📸: Alex Wong/Getty Images

www.vox.com/health/474724/alcohol-consumption-2025…<media_url>

4 days ago | [YT] | 2,867

Vox

Struggling to figure out which friends you want to spend most of your attention on? Make a list of your “strawberry people” — aka those who lift you up and meet your friendship goals.

Once you determine who those people are in your life, add an emoji (strawberry or otherwise) next to their contact as a reminder to be available and cultivate that friendship.

“I think of it like tending a garden,” said Sam Dylan Finch, creator of the “strawberry people” method.

Read more: www.vox.com/life/473859/closer-friendships-strawbe…<media_url>

5 days ago | [YT] | 504

Vox

At the core of the new federal dietary guidelines is a paradox. In many ways, they are not a radical departure from past guidance, yet they reveal the blunders of trying to turn vibes and folk wisdom into a public health agenda.

The new guidelines are littered with confusingly contradictory advice — limit saturated fat, but red meat and full-fat dairy are fine, and also consider cooking with butter and beef tallow! Focus on whole grains, but according to the guidelines’ website, preferred grains include “true sourdough.” There are also what appear to be outright errors: Olive oil is mentioned as a meaningful source of essential fatty acids, but it’s actually very low in them (though it’s still really healthy!).

This is evidence of an administration that seems to see nutrition guidance as a culture-war emblem rather than a careful public health policy instrument.

6 days ago | [YT] | 2,294

Vox

Is inflammation really the root of all of our health problems? What's the difference between "good" inflammation and "bad inflammation"?

Join Vox health reporter Dylan Scott on Reddit right now as he answers all of your questions about inflammation 👇🤖

www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1q8d8pu/im_a_health…

6 days ago | [YT] | 250

Vox

What happens when you merge the world’s most toxic social media cesspool with the world’s most unhinged, uninhibited, and intentionally “spicy” AI chatbot?

It looks a lot like what we’re seeing play out on X right now. Users have been feeding images into xAI’s Grok chatbot, which boasts a powerful and largely uncensored image and video generator, to create explicit content, including of ordinary people. The proliferation of deepfake porn on the platform has gotten so extreme that today, xAI’s Grok chatbot spits out an estimated one nonconsensual sexual image every single minute. Over the past several weeks, thousands of users have hopped on the grotesque trend of using Grok to undress mostly women and children — yes, children — without their consent through a workaround.

You might be wondering: How is any of this legal? To be clear, it’s not. But advocates and legal experts say that current laws still fall far short of the protections that victims need, and the sheer volume of deepfakes being created on platforms like X make the protections that do exist very difficult to enforce.

6 days ago | [YT] | 1,422