Vox

Nathan Posner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images The public isn’t likely to get its hands on the documents any time soon. After three contentious years, the Congressional Ways and Means Committee can finally get its hands on former President Donald Trump’s tax returns. But whether the Committee will release that information to the public is yet to be seen. Trump’s tax returns should have been public information since his nomination in 2016. Now that Congress has access to the documents, the appropriate committees can determine whether he committed any financial indiscretions and whether the IRS dealt with it properly. But it...

A green sea turtle swimming off the coast of Western Australia. | Getty Images At COP15 in Montreal, officials will try to hash out a deal to protect animals and ecosystems. It won’t be easy. One of the most important events for life on Earth, ever, is about to begin. This week and next, delegates from more than 190 countries will come together in Montreal, Canada, for a conference known as COP15, or the UN Biodiversity Conference, to hash out a plan to halt the decline of ecosystems, wildlife, and the life-supporting services they provide. If the term “COP” sounds...

People gather in front of the US Supreme Court in June 2019 after a decision opening the floodgates to partisan gerrymandering. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images Moore v. Harper is a test of whether this Supreme Court can ever be trusted with power. The opening brief in Moore v. Harper, an extraordinarily high-stakes election case that the Supreme Court will hear December 7, is one of the least persuasive documents that I’ve ever read in any context. And I’ve read both Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, and Donald Trump’s Art of the Deal. Moore is also potentially the biggest threat to free...

Photo by Alex Livesey - Danehouse/Getty Images The FIFA World Cup has highlighted Qatar’s laws and attitudes towards homosexuality. Qatar’s anti-LGBTQ policies have become a flashpoint in a controversial World Cup tournament; between national teams facing punishment for wearing rainbow “One Love” armbands, international fans being told they can’t wear rainbow shirts, and a Qatari minister’s anti-LGBTQ comments this week, queer rights in the tiny Gulf emirate are one of the controversies on and off the pitch. In Qatar, where punishments can include up to three years in prison for being LGBTQ, it has meant friction with the world over...

Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images The president’s statements on talks with Russia aren’t that different from his previous positions. President Joe Biden’s comments on Thursday that he’d be open to diplomacy with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the war in Ukraine may have been more about signaling Western solidarity and shoring up the US’s relationship with France than about entering into an imminent dialogue with Russia. Biden made the remarks during an official state visit from French President Emmanuel Macron, whose decision to try and engage Putin in talks during the course of the invasion has been met with little...

(From left front) Representative-elects Maxwell Frost, Robert Garcia, and Delia Ramirez take a selfie with other newly elected incoming members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal, and Rep. Ilhan Omar after a news conference at the AFL-CIO Building in Washington, DC, on November 13. | Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images Voters are sending the highest number of Latino lawmakers to Congress ever, and increasing ideological diversity along with it. The incoming Congress will be historic for many reasons, including the House of Representatives’ highest share of Latino lawmakers ever. Fourteen newly elected candidates will join...

People gather outside the Supreme Court to protest the decision on Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which ruled in favor of Colorado baker Jack Phillips, on June 4, 2018. | Sarah Silbiger/CQ Roll Call What is art? The Christian right wants that question to be decided by the Supreme Court in 303 Creative v. Elenis. 303 Creative v. Elenis, a case about a website designer who refuses to design wedding websites for same-sex couples, could potentially become one of the most consequential anti-discrimination cases in the Supreme Court’s recent history. It asks whether the First Amendment’s free speech...

The precinct captain of a Democrat caucus counts hand votes for Sen. John Kerry of fellow Democrats gathered in a Winterset, Iowa, living room. | Marlin Levison/Star Tribune via Getty Images It’s Joe Biden’s Democratic Party and he’ll ditch New Hampshire and Iowa if he wants to. For a half-century, the presidential nominating calendar has been regular and predictable. But, on Friday, the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the DNC decided to blow up the 2024 primary process. The committee approved a new primary schedule that ended Iowa’s status as an early state and calls into question New Hampshire’s place...

Kanye West at Paris Fashion Week, October 2022. | Edward Berthelot/GC Images Kanye West is dining with white supremacists and openly praising Hitler. How did we get here? Fake children, lost Black tribes of Israel, and vast conspiracies, all leading to an incendiary Thanksgiving-week dinner with Donald Trump and a hard-line white nationalist and public praise of Hitler’s Nazi regime: This is not the Kanye West we used to know. Ye, né Kanye, habitually draws headlines for more than just his music, whether it’s for his outspoken comments on race and politics, his beefs with other artists, or his contentious...