Skip to main content

Features

A collection of Vox’s longreads and feature reporting projects.

Climate
California’s huge energy decision: link its grid to its neighbors, or stay autonomous?California’s huge energy decision: link its grid to its neighbors, or stay autonomous?
Climate

The state must decide how jealously to guard its clean energy progress.

By David Roberts
100 million Americans have chronic pain. Very few use one of the best tools to treat it.
Science

Chronic pain often has no physical cause. Psychotherapy can reduce the suffering.

By Brian Resnick
Why Trump’s inauguration money is a major part of Mueller’s Russia investigation
Explainers

Russia-tied donations and oligarch connections have drawn Mueller’s interest.

By Andrew Prokop
Aubtin Heydari was nearly killed at Charlottesville last year. This is his story.
Politics

“The TV’s on to CNN, and it’s just replaying video of us being hit.”

By Zack Beauchamp
Culture
Meet a new kind of book, designed for the age of Peak TVMeet a new kind of book, designed for the age of Peak TV
Culture

Here’s what it looks like when you write a book as if it’s a TV show.

By Constance Grady
Why so many poor kids who get into college don’t end up enrolling
Explainers

When the bread crumbs end, they get lost in the American education system.

By Alvin Chang
These 4 products say everything about America’s gun problem
Features

Bullet-resistant shields for classrooms shouldn’t be an easier sell than gun control.

By Alexia Fernández Campbell
White America is quietly self-segregating
Policy

Everyone wants diversity. But not everyone wants it on their street.

By Alvin Chang
Features
Research says there are ways to reduce racial bias. Calling people racist isn’t one of them.Research says there are ways to reduce racial bias. Calling people racist isn’t one of them.
Features

The challenge for anti-racists looking for solutions in Trump’s America.

By German Lopez
I went to a huge conference on school safety. No one wanted to talk about gun control.
Features

The most obvious solution to school shootings is the one nobody wanted to discuss.

By Alexia Fernández Campbell
How music has responded to a decade of economic inequality
Culture

Popular music has always delivered social critique. But it’s struggled to grapple with the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

By Scott Timberg
White threat in a browning America
Politics

How demographic change is fracturing our politics.

By Ezra Klein
Hubble can see galaxies impossibly far away. Here’s what happens when it looks at Mars and Saturn.
Science

See Mars and Saturn in big, bright detail.

By Brian Resnick
Why restaurants became so loud — and how to fight back
Hearing loss affects 1 in 4 adults in the US. Is our noisy world to blame?

“I can’t hear you.”

By Julia Belluz
A comprehensive guide to the new science of treating lower back pain
Science

A review of 80-plus studies upends the conventional wisdom.

By Julia Belluz
Trump needs his alternate reality to survive — and he knows it
Explainers

“What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”

By Alvin Chang
Those who leave home, and those who stay
Politics

How we’re sorted into these groups.

By Alvin Chang
9 women to watch from this year’s midterms
Women are running — and winning — in 2018

Meet the breakout stars of the 2018 election.

By Li Zhou, Dylan Scott and 3 more
Trump’s enduring political strength with white women, explained
Women are running — and winning — in 2018

There are huge divides by age and education.

By Matthew Yglesias
James Gunn’s firing shows we’re still living in the Gamergate era
Culture

Gunn’s dismissal from Marvel and its Guardians of the Galaxy franchise is only the tip of a much bigger, more hate-filled iceberg.

By Emily St. James
We’re underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video
The mind, explained

Doctored photos can easily create false memories. What happens when there’s fake video?

By Brian Resnick
Nancy Pelosi’s last stand
Explainers

If Democrats win in November, their first order of business is going to be a nasty leadership fight.

By Ella Nilsen
A baby was treated with a nap and a bottle of formula. His parents received an $18,000 bill.
Hospitals kept ER fees secret. We uncovered them.

An ER patient can be charged thousands of dollars in “trauma fees” — even if they weren’t treated for trauma.

By Jenny Gold, Kaiser Health News and Sarah Kliff
The waves of feminism, and why people keep fighting over them, explained
Explainers

If you have no idea which wave of feminism we’re in right now, read this.

By Constance Grady
The hacked emails at the center of Mueller’s Russia investigation, explained
Politics

The leaks that plagued the DNC, John Podesta, and others are crucial to the Russian interference probe.

By Andrew Prokop
9 questions about the World Cup you were too embarrassed to ask
Explainers

How does the World Cup work? Who will win? And what’s the official song?

By Alex Ward
Nearly 2 years into the Trump presidency, Fox News is still obsessed with Hillary Clinton
Media

With Trump fighting off scandals, Fox News still needs the “Hillary” villain.

By Alvin Chang
Explainers
Mass shootings since Sandy Hook, in one mapMass shootings since Sandy Hook, in one map
Explainers

Here’s the data behind these tragic events.

By Kavya Sukumar and German Lopez
Here’s how to watch the World Cup’s round of 16
Features

The World Cup’s most exciting part — the knockout stages — finally begins.

By Alex Ward
Politics
Inside the DOJ’s struggle with Trump’s demand for a “Spygate” investigationInside the DOJ’s struggle with Trump’s demand for a “Spygate” investigation
Politics

Fear of mass resignations, a potential constitutional crisis, and the erosion of independence within the Justice Department.

By Murray Waas
Summer is for meteor showers and stargazing. Here’s how to watch.
Science

The Perseid meteor shower, a total lunar eclipse, and Mars at opposition: the best skywatching this summer.

By Brian Resnick
Explainers
How NASA hunts the asteroids that could smash into EarthHow NASA hunts the asteroids that could smash into Earth
Explainers

How to find, track, and prevent asteroids from destroying cities.

By Brian Resnick and Kavya Sukumar
Politics
Exclusive: Trump administration plan would bar people who enter illegally from getting asylumExclusive: Trump administration plan would bar people who enter illegally from getting asylum
Politics

A sweeping regulation being considered would likely stop most Central Americans from winning asylum in the US.

By Dara Lind
The Gray Area
America’s racial future is California’s presentAmerica’s racial future is California’s present
Podcast
The Gray Area

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on governing a changing America.

By Ezra Klein
Why does the Pentagon keep getting surprised by Trump?
Explainers

Trump made big announcements on North Korea and space. The Pentagon was surprised.

By Alex Ward
Robert Mueller won’t save us
The Vox guide to Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation

Only Congress can decide if the president is above the law.

By Sean Illing
Hundreds of people in Mexico are kidnapped every year. And the problem’s getting worse.
Features

It’s part of a trend experts call the “democratization” of kidnapping.

By Rory Smith
American democracy has faced worse threats than Donald Trump
Features

The golden age of American politics was illiberal, undemocratic, and bloody.

By Ezra Klein
We really do have a solution to the opioid epidemic — and one state is showing it works
Confronting America’s opioid epidemic

Virginia shows how Medicaid can help end the opioid crisis.

By German Lopez
India and Pakistan are quietly making nuclear war more likely
Features

Both countries are arming their submarines with nukes.

By Tom Hundley