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How to feel awe every day | The Gray Area - May 4, 2026 - Vox

Sean talks with psychologist Dacher Keltner about the science of awe and why it might be one of the most important emotions we have. They explore how awe quiets the ego, shifts our attention away from ourselves, and reconnects us to other people, nature, and larger patterns of meaning. Along the way, they discuss why music, moral courage, and even grief can trigger awe, how modern life may be starving us of it, and what it reveals about the limits of reason, the power of the body, and the deeper ways we make sense of being human.

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Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling)

Guest: Dacher Keltner

00:00 Intro

02:39 Awe vs fear

08:14 Awe and human achievement

12:23 How awe quiets the self

20:17 How awe reconnects us to the world

29:29 Awe and moral beauty

37:56 Awe in unexpected places

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America 250: What does a “more perfect union” look like? | America, Actually - May 2, 2026 - Vox

Are we in a period of reinvention, or is the 250-year-old "American experiment" now hitting a wall?

This week on America, Actually, historian Heather Cox Richardson explains our current political climate and how the US is facing its biggest stress test since the Civil War. The substack author helps us write a new social contract for the next 250 years.

00:00 Intro: The state of the “American experiment”

01:00 Is the US reinventing itself every 80 years?

02:19 How art and history shape politics

04:09 Understanding the rise of Donald Trump

08:40 Reclaiming patriotism and our national narrative

14:52 Drafting a new social contract

15:45 Voting rights and protecting our environment

18:40 Supreme Court terms and universal healthcare

America, Actually publishes video episodes every Saturday tackling key issues in politics, culture, and the economy. Subscribe to Vox’s YouTube channel to get them. Listen to episodes of America, Actually on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app.

If you enjoy our reporting and want to hear more from Vox journalists, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/vox. Each month, our members get access to exclusive videos, livestreams, and chats with our newsroom.

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Hegseth's holy war - May 1, 2026 - Vox

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has a longstanding fascination with the Crusades. That’s right, the Crusades: the series of late 11th to 13th century medieval wars in which Europeans fought to control the Holy Land. He has tattoos that reference the Crusades, something that actually came up in his confirmation hearing in 2025. And his 2020 book is titled American Crusade. The final chapter is titled “Make the Crusade Great Again.”

Hegseth paints the Crusades as a “defensive war” in which Christianity had to react or face being overrun by Islam. According to professor of medieval history Matthew Gabriele, this is an extreme oversimplification of the actual history. And viewing the past in this way could have possibly dangerous ramifications on the current war in Iran.

Pete Hegseth’s obsession with the Crusades may seem like a personality quirk, like your uncle who is obsessed with World War 2 submarines. But when that worldview influences how a defense secretary thinks about modern conflicts, it stops just being about the past — and it starts shaping the future.

Vox producer Nate Krieger took a closer look at this “Holy War” to investigate the actual history of the Crusades and to understand how Pete Hegseth’s interest with medieval history might actually affect US foreign policy and the future of the war in Iran.

Further reading:

- Vox correspondent Joshua Keating’s article on Hegseth’s role in Trump’s foreign policy team: https://www.vox.com/world-politics/386680/trump-foreign-policy-rubio-hegseth-waltz-gabbard

- The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe by Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-bright-ages-matthew-gabrieledavid-m-perry?variant=40262551044130

- Black Metaphors: How Modern Racism Emerged from Medieval Race-Thinking by Cord J. Whitaker: https://www.pennpress.org/9780812225068/black-metaphors/

- The Anti-Defamation League’s encyclopedia of symbols that have been designated as hate symbols, many of which are related to medieval history or the Crusades: https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/ADL%20Hate%20on%20Display%20Printable_0.pdf

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The truth about fatherhood | The Gray Area - May 1, 2026 - Vox

Everyone says having kids changes your life. That’s true. But it’s not the whole story.

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Sean talks with author Derek Thompson about fatherhood, how raising kids can shock you, and why parenting feels not so much “hard” as “nonstop.” They explore the weird psychology of loving something more than yourself, the loss of control over your own time, and the bittersweet realization that every moment with your child is already slipping away. Also: why two kids is not just twice the work, and why you might still want to get on the ride anyway.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling)

Guest: Derek Thompson (@DKThomp)

00:00 Intro

01:19 Fatherhood isn’t hard. It’s relentless

06:27 A baby is a stranger

12:53 There's no such thing as a baby

19:47 Do we have a healthy conception of fatherhood?

24:37 Why you have to put yourself first

32:40 Instinctive vs analytical parenting

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The voting rights case that could set us back 60 years - April 29, 2026 - Vox

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a very big deal. It transformed America, marking the end of the Jim Crow era and effectively banning racial discrimination in elections. Finally fulfilling the promise of a multiracial democracy, Black voter registration increased, and political representation across the nation better reflected America’s diverse population.

60 years later, a key pillar of the Voting Rights Act is at risk of being erased. In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court has sided with the plaintiffs in a redistricting case out of Louisiana called Louisiana v. Callais. The case focused on Louisiana’s legislative maps, which were amended after a 2022 lawsuit in which civil rights groups and community members sued the state of Louisiana, claiming the maps drawn after the 2020 census didn’t properly reflect Louisiana’s Black population.

Once the new map with two majority-Black districts passed in the Louisiana state legislature in 2024, a group of “non African-American voters” filed a lawsuit that alleged the new map was unconstitutional and racially gerrymandered, intended to cut white voters out of power. Following the Supreme Court ruling, Louisiana must redraw that map.

What happens next could ignite a widespread gerrymandering effort that would alter electoral maps across red states and have major effects on minority political representation in the United States at every level of government.

If you want to read more about the case, take a look at some of the sources that contributed to our reporting:

The Louisiana v. Callais case: https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/case-files/louisiana-v-callais-2/

A piece on the Supreme Court ruling by Vox senior correspondent Ian Millhiser: https://www.vox.com/politics/487363/supreme-court-louisiana-callais-gerrymandering-alito-voting-rights-act

Power Coalition’s work: https://powercoalition.org/

The Fair Fight and Black Voters Matter report: https://blackvotersmatterfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Fair-Fight-Action-x-Black-Voters-Matter-Report.pdf

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Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out http://www.vox.com.

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