Vox Media Studios

Follow Mike Birbiglia from Providence, R.I. to Washington, D.C. as he builds jokes based on personal truths, mixing comedy with revelations and anecdotes from family and his fellow comedians.

"What Donald Trump’s win means for abortion, immigration, foreign policy, and more. "Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, will also be its 47th president. After voting him out of office in 2020, American voters changed their minds, opting for a return to his policies and his politics. "But the second Trump presidency will look very little like the first. His policies have evolved, his circumstances have changed, and he will be returning to office with a much more focused plan than the one he entered with eight years ago. "In this video, we ask six Vox reporters what we should expect from Trump’s second term, on topics from foreign policy to abortion" (Vox).

In 1973, Eunice Johnson, the founder of Ebony and Jet, launched the first national cosmetics brand created exclusively for Black women. This film chronicles Fashion Fair’s past, and follows its new leadership as they reinvent the brand.

"If high inflation hurts just about everyone, why can’t we have no inflation?"

"How our digital lives are impacting our climate goals" (Vox).

"Why we’re all paying so much more for Netflix, and what we can do about it."

A newly single woman finds a seemingly perfect gentleman to sublet the spare room in her dream home, but she soon learns that his deceit goes beyond a phony name and application, and she has unwittingly invited a serial squatter into her home who won’t leave without a fight.

"And the study that offers a glimpse into a post-Roe v. Wade future" (Vox).

"But they’re right that something has changed in American cities."

"The post-covid pop-up boom, explained."

"How Los Angeles destroyed a community and built a ballpark on top of it" (Vox).

"Lawns aren’t natural. Why do so many Americans have them?" (Vox).

"The (bad) options for Americans facing an emergency expense."

"There’s a reason so many of us don’t have enough retirement savings."

" There’s no denying that Americans rely heavily on Social Security benefits. Estimates from the Social Security Administration found that 97% of adults over the age of 60 are either collecting or will start collecting Social Security. As of February 2023, about one in every five residents in the US collected benefits from these funds. For such a widely used program, it’s a bit surprising that people in the US know so little about how it works. To be fair, most of the news around this program over the past decade has been about how it’s doomed in one way or another. Millennials and younger may see the money being taxed from their paychecks and believe they’ll probably never see it again, but is the program really destined to fail? And what do we stand to lose if it does?"

An offensive lineman who, after seeing a career-ending injury cut his professional football dreams short, finds unexpected fame and fortune in the world of brawny male modeling.

"She’s Barbie. He’s just Jaws. "The summer of 2023 was the summer of Barbie. Everywhere you looked there was marketing — posters, ads, trailers. There were Barbie cafe’s, Barbie progressive commercials, everyone was wearing pink! It was a delightful wave of cinematic energy. "But it was also completely overwhelming. At times it felt inescapable. "Barbie’s marketing felt different. And in some ways it was — but it owes a lot to the blockbusters that came before."

Why the US has so many undocumented immigrants.

"America grew from a colony to a superpower in 200 years. "With over 800 military bases around the globe, the US is easily the most powerful nation on earth. But it wasn't always this way. The US once played an insignificant role in global affairs. In this 8-minute video, you can see the transformation" (Vox).