Today, Explained is Vox's daily news explainer podcast. Hosts Sean Rameswaram and Noel King will guide you through the most important stories of the day.
The US is negotiating to stop Russia from invading Ukraine, but a Germany-backed natural gas project complicates things.
19 min
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Breyer to Reteyer
Vox’s Ian Millhiser says American politics shifted during Justice Stephen Breyer’s career, until he no longer had a place in them.
20 min
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Joe Biden, r u ok?
Build Back Blunders, and other presidential misadventures.
24 min
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A Syrian war criminal is actually going to prison
Crimes against humanity are rarely prosecuted successfully, but a Syrian colonel got a life sentence for just that. Documentarian Adithya Sambamurthy explains how Germany is spearheading the effort.
22 min
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China’s Winter Olympics (feat. Covid-19)
The Games don’t begin until February 4, but the drama around the pandemic, free speech, and diplomatic boycotts has been building for months. NPR’s Emily Feng explains from Beijing.
25 min
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10 Downer Street
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is facing political ruin because his aides partied while the UK locked down.
25 min
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The man with a pig heart
That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.
24 min
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The James Webb Time Machine
To look into deep space is to look back in time. Ahead of the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, Unexplainable talked to scientists who hope to see “cosmic dawn,” a period long ago when the first starlight transformed the universe.
24 min
734
The James Webb Space Telescope
This Sunday, the greatest telescope in the history of humanity is scheduled to reach its destination nearly a million miles away from Earth. Vox’s Unexplainable explored what it will do when it gets there.
26 min
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Chile’s millennial president
The 35-year-old president-elect in Chile loves tattoos, Taylor Swift, and progressive policies. Gabriel Boric will now try to overhaul the government as Chile rewrites its constitution.
24 min
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Why Russia sent its janky version of NATO to Ka...
The speedy arrival of CSTO troops in Kazakhstan is unprecedented in the 30-year history of the Russia-backed regional security alliance.
16 min
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"Break the Senate"
President Joe Biden wants to change how the Senate works to pass voting reforms. Sen. Mitch McConnell is threatening hell if it happens.
25 min
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Novax Djokovic
How the best-ranked men’s tennis player in the world went to Australia to become the greatest of all time and ended up being detained.
27 min
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No substitutes for the substitutes
What happens when all the teachers get sick?
21 min
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The high cost of cheap clothes
Fast fashion took over the apparel industry, but consumers are tiring of its poor labor and environmental standards. Vox’s Terry Nguyen explains.
22 min
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Life on the Russia-Ukraine border
Russia has kept its military at Ukraine’s doorstep for almost a decade. But a recent escalation on the border is creating fears of a full-blown invasion.
24 min
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Theranope
A tech startup said it could start a medical revolution with a little machine and a drop of blood. It was a fraud, but research into smarter, less invasive blood testing is a reality.
22 min
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Will omicron speed up the pandemic’s end?
The omicron variant is very transmissible, but it might make Covid-19 less miserable.
20 min
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America still can’t agree on its insurrection
One year later, the United States is still trying to wrap its head around what happened on January 6, 2021. (It was an insurrection.) This year, our democracy once again will be tested.
31 min
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2021
4 min
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Giannis Antetokounmpo’s American dream
Giannis Antetokounmpo went from hawking watches and DVDs on the streets of Greece to winning an NBA championship for the Milwaukee Bucks. In this repodcast, the Ringer’s Mirin Fader tells the story of his improbable rise.
33 min
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Taylor’s version
One of the biggest pop stars in the world is rerecording her first six albums at the artistic peak of her career. In this repodcast, the Atlantic’s Shirley Li explains Taylor Swift’s strategy.
26 min
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The spike in gun violence
America's homicide rate rose by almost 30 percent in 2020. It was the biggest spike in 60 years, and the murder rate was even higher in 2021. In this repodcast, ProPublica’s Alec MacGillis explains what might be causing “The Great Regression."
47 min
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Four days of work?
The pandemic changed how we think about work. In this repodcast, Vox’s Anna North says it might be time to change how much we work, too.