Vox Bias Rating

The Supreme Court building on May 4, 2026, in Washington, DC. | Andrew Harnik/Getty Images Abortion pills have been on a bit of a journey in the United States over the past few weeks. It starts in Louisiana: The state sued the Food and Drug Administration late last year, seeking to eliminate access to the abortion pill mifepristone through telehealth and mail order. On May 1, the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Louisiana, temporarily blocking access to telehealth abortion and pill

A few months ago, while engaging in one of my more recent pastimes (or compulsions), I verbalized a fear I’d long kept buried, perhaps out of shame or denial or some combination of both. First, the compulsory ritual: Before bed, with the precision of a brain surgeon, I arrange a layer of stickers on my face. The brand is Frownies, and they have been marketed to me as a cheaper, less invasive alternative to Botox. Place these beige patches — offered in unique shapes meant to hug your eyes, caress

Medical staff direct some of the last passengers to be evacuated from the MV Hondius on May 11, 2026 in Tenerife, part of the Canary Islands, Spain. | Chris McGrath/Getty Images Should you be worried about the hantavirus outbreak? Should you be afraid? Should you be panicking? Should you start freaking out? If you’ve been following the coverage of the hantavirus outbreak aboard the cruise ship MV Hondius, these are the questions you’ve seen posed in headlines. And a small tip from inside  the

President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands as they depart following a bilateral meeting at Gimhae Air Base on October 30, 2025, in Busan, South Korea. | Andrew Harnik/Getty Images Key takeaways Donald Trump’s upcoming summit with Xi Jinping is likely to be dominated and somewhat overshadowed by the ongoing conflict in Iran.  In recent months, US attention and military resources have been shifted from Asia to the Middle East, where the war has proven longer and more di

Pete Buttigieg, former US secretary of transportation, speaks during the Global Progress Action Summit at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in Toronto, Canada. | Soeren Stache/Picture Alliance via Getty Images TORONTO — At a conference bookended by speeches from President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, the leading lights of the global center-left gathered to consider their fate.  The Global Progress Action Summit was billed as a “progressive version of CPAC,” the right-wing

FDA Commissioner Marty Makary in the Oval Office of the White House on December 18, 2025. | Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images 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: Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary is out of a job.  What happened? Makary, who led the federal agency in charge of regulating drugs, m

The cruise ship MV Hondius, initial site of the hantavirus outbreak. | Europa Press via Getty Images Almost as soon as the hantavirus outbreak on the cruise ship MV Hondius became international news, public health experts rushed to assuage the public: This is not Covid-19. Don’t worry — this is a virus that requires “close contact” to spread. The risk of a pandemic is quite low. But if this apparent certainty from public health leaders amid another emergent health crisis made you recall the ea

Peter Thiel and Alex Karp’s Palantir Technologies is one of the most powerful and mysterious tech companies in Silicon Valley. Its namesake is also one of the most powerful and mysterious magical objects in the lore of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic fantasy series The Lord of the Rings. The palantiri of The Lord of the Rings are sort of like crystal balls or “seeing stones” that allow their users to communicate across vast distances, see events from afar, and sometimes even peer into the future. But just

Why on Earth would Democrats want to give these guys more power over elections? | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images If you’re a Democrat, ask yourself a simple question: When was the last time something got better after Brett Kavanaugh put his hands on it? Unfortunately, Jay Jones, the Democratic attorney general of Virginia, does not appear to have considered this question before he asked the US Supreme Court to get involved in his state’s fight over gerrymandering. If the Court actually buys one

Smoke lingers in the air from the Brantley Highway 82 Fire on April 24, 2026, in Atkinson, Georgia. The wildfire was one of many burning in the southeastern United States. | Sean Rayford/Getty Images This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Drought and fire are a dangerous duo. The Southeastern United States is witnessing this firsthand, as several major blazes have burned tens of thousands of acres across the

Members of Spain’s External Health Service in Tenerife, Canary Islands, on May 10, 2026, after passengers disembarked from the MV Hondius cruise ship. | Andres Gutierrez/Anadolu via Getty Images Eighteen Americans are now back in the United States after being stuck on a cruise ship that was stricken with an outbreak of hantavirus. That cruise seems a strong contender for among the worst in history — the passengers became stuck early last month, when a handful became sick. Since then, three pas

Donald Trump disembarks from Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews on May 3, 2026. | Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images 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: President Donald Trump hopes to suspend the federal gas tax as his war with Iran drives prices ever higher.  Can he do that? Not by himself, though it’s not clear Trump knows that: