Noel King

United States

Co-Host and Editorial Director at Today, Explained

@today_explained previously passed the background check @upfirst @planetmoney

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Articles

Pete Hegseth and women in combat, explained

1 week ago | vox.com | Victoria Chamberlin |Noel King

Women weren’t allowed to officially serve in combat jobs when Emelie Vanasse started her ROTC program at George Washington University. Instead, she used her biology degree to serve as a medical officer — but it still bothered Vanasse to be shut out of something just because she was a woman. “I always felt like, who really has the audacity to tell me that I can’t be in combat arms? I’m resilient, I am tough, I can make decisions in stressful environments,” Vanasse said.
Why young men are so absent from the literary fiction scene, explained

1 week ago | vox.com | Miles Bryan |Noel King

Every generation has a small group of young fiction writers who make it: They top bestseller lists, win prizes, and become household names. And for decades — well, nearly every decade — they have all been straight white men. Philip Roth. Norman Mailer. John Updike. Jonathan Franzen. Jonathan Safran Foer. You get the picture. But in the last decade or so, that’s changed: The up-and-coming writers capturing buzz and dominating critics’ lists have largely been women.
“Baby Botox” and the psychology of cosmetic procedures

1 week ago | vox.com | Noel King

Botox injections used to be a secret for (largely) women in their 40s and 50s. But growing numbers of (largely) women in their 20s and 30s are turning to “baby Botox,” or smaller doses that are intended to prevent aging rather than combat it. Baby Botox is just one intervention that doctors say younger people now frequently seek, and some view the trend with concern.
National emergency declarations: What they do and why Trump keeps making them

2 weeks ago | vox.com | Amanda Lewellyn |Noel King

President Donald Trump has made a habit of declaring emergencies. Since he took office for his second term, Trump has issued declarations of emergency at the southern border. On energy and trade. About drug trafficking and cartels, and even the International Criminal Court. In all, he’s declared eight emergencies in his first 100 days, a rate that far outstrips any previous president, including his own first term.
America is a country of doomsday preppers

3 weeks ago | vox.com | Hady Mawajdeh |Noel King

If you’re anything like me, following the news makes it feel like the world is on the verge of collapse. There are wars on multiple continents, millions are dying because of famine, extremism is on the rise, natural disasters caused by climate change have become the new norm, and the economy seems headed for a recession.
Pope Leo XIV elected: What his history can tell us about his papacy

4 weeks ago | vox.com | Amanda Lewellyn |Noel King

Pope Leo XIV, formerly known as Robert Prevost, is the first American pontiff. He was elected on Thursday, less than three weeks after the death of Pope Francis, and his elevation immediately made history. Leo grew up in Chicago, majored in math at Villanova University, and spent decades serving the Catholic Church in Peru. Significantly, Pope Leo is also the first pontiff to hail from the Augustinian order, which was founded in 1244.
Would you pay more for an American-made TV? This influential thinker thinks you will.

1 month ago | vox.com | Noel King |Miles Bryan

Most mainstream economists agree that the massive tariffs Donald Trump is imposing on most of the United States’s trading partners are a bad idea — that they will make the economy weaker and inflation worse. Not Oren Cass.
Would you pay more for an American-made TV? This influential thinker thinks you will.

1 month ago | flipboard.com | Noel King

5 hours agoAsked about the spat, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, "Boys will be boys, and we will let their public sparring continue." WASHINGTON — Elon Musk on Tuesday blasted President Donald Trump's top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, as a "moron" and "dumber than a sack of bricks" in a spat …
How Trump’s tariffs could help China

2 months ago | vox.com | Noel King |Gabrielle Berbey

President Donald Trump’s new tariff chart, which he unveiled Wednesday at the Rose Garden, had a mixture of surprising and predictable countries on the list. A high tariff on China? Not so surprising. But among the top 10 countries on his chart, eight are in Asia. Many close US allies like South Korea and Japan were stunned by the steep rate increases applied to their exports. Since the announcement, markets in Asia have tumbled.
One big reason for fewer babies: the phones?

2 months ago | vox.com | Noel King |Miles Bryan

All across the world, people are having fewer children. The birth rate is declining quickly in countries ranging from the United States to Finland to Mexico and Turkey. Fertility data used to be a fairly esoteric concern. Not anymore. Vice President JD Vance talks about it regularly, Elon Musk calls it civilization’s greatest threat. There’s even a convention for “pronatalists,” Natalcon, taking place later this month in Texas.