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2026-05-02 06:05:00

2026年4月24日，唐纳德·特朗普在马里兰州安德鲁斯联合基地登上空军一号。本文出自《Logoff》每日简报，旨在帮助您了解特朗普政府的动态，而不会让政治新闻占据您的生活。订阅此处。欢迎来到《Logoff》：特朗普总统向国会宣称伊朗战争已经结束，实际情况如何？根据特朗普的说法，由于美伊停火协议的实施，伊朗战争已“终止”，且该协议目前仍有效，没有明确的结束期限。他在给国会的信中写道：“自2026年4月7日起，美国武装部队与伊朗之间已无交火记录。自2026年2月28日开始的敌对行动已终止。”然而，从现有证据来看，这一说法并不准确。尽管美伊并未爆发大规模战争，但美国仍对霍尔木兹海峡实施海军封锁（上个月，美国甚至击中了一艘涉嫌违反封锁的伊朗船只，特朗普称其为“在引擎室炸出一个洞”）。此外，美军仍驻扎在伊朗附近，冲突随时可能重新升级，而特朗普也持续威胁要恢复全面战争。特朗普的这封信显然是为了规避《战争权力决议》——该决议要求美国在通知国会冲突开始后60天内结束军事行动，除非国会批准继续行动（国会尚未批准，且特朗普政府也未寻求延长60天的期限）。不过，特朗普并非首个试图规避该决议的总统：正如《华盛顿邮报》前助理国务卿斯蒂芬·拉德默克所指出的，无论是哪个党派的总统，都曾以不同方式规避过这一规定。好了，现在是时候“下线”了。各位读者，祝您五一快乐！以下是来自Vox“Unexplainable”播客的两个谜题，供您周末娱乐。如果您想了解更多，欢迎收听播客。祝您度过愉快的周末，我们周一再见！

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: President Donald Trump told Congress the Iran war is over. Is it? 

What happened? Friday marks a legal deadline for Trump, after which he should be required to wind down US military operations around Iran. But according to Trump, he already has: The president wrote in a letter to Congress on Friday that the Iran war was “terminated” thanks to the US-Iran ceasefire, which remains in effect with no firm deadline.

“There has been no exchange of fire between the United States Forces and Iran since April 7, 2026,” Trump wrote in the letter. “The hostilities that began on February 28, 2026, have been terminated.”

Is it true? Not really, from all evidence available. While the US and Iran haven’t been engaged in the kind of full-scale hostilities that marked the early weeks of the conflict, a US naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is still in place. (Last month, the US even fired on an Iranian-flagged ship allegedly attempting to violate the blockade — in Trump’s words, “blowing a hole in the engineroom.”)

US forces also remain in place near Iran, and there’s the ever-present possibility that the conflict could resume at full force — something Trump has continued to threaten as a deal to end the conflict permanently eludes him. 

What’s the context? Trump’s letter is a fairly transparent attempt to skate around the War Powers Resolution, which requires the US to end its involvement in military conflicts within 60 days of notifying Congress of their start, unless Congress votes to authorize the conflict. (It hasn’t. There’s also the possibility of a 30-day extension on that 60-day deadline, which the Trump administration has likewise not yet pursued.)

He’s not the first president to do this, however: As Stephen Rademaker, a former assistant secretary of state, points out in the Washington Post, there’s a pattern of presidents from both parties evading the War Powers Resolution in various circumstances. 

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Hi readers, happy May Day! Here are two mysteries to keep you entertained over the weekend, from my colleagues at Vox’s Unexplainable podcast. I’ll keep them mysterious here — if you want to learn more, the podcast is a great listen. Have a good weekend, and we’ll see you back here on Monday! 

2026-05-02 04:00:00

美国国防部长彼得·赫格赛特对十字军东征有着长期的兴趣。十字军东征指的是11至13世纪欧洲为争夺圣地而发动的一系列中世纪战争。他在2025年确认听证会上曾因十字军东征相关的纹身引发关注，其2020年出版的书籍名为《美国十字军东征》，最后一章标题为“让十字军东征复兴”。赫格赛特将十字军东征描绘为基督教为抵御伊斯兰扩张而进行的“防御性战争”。然而，中世纪历史教授马修·加布里埃尔认为，这种观点是对历史的极端简化。以这种视角看待过去，可能会对当前伊朗战争产生潜在危险的影响。赫格赛特对十字军东征的痴迷看似只是个人兴趣，如同你叔叔痴迷二战潜艇，但当这种世界观影响国防部长对现代冲突的看法时，它就不再只是对过去的关注，而是开始塑造未来。Vox的制作人内特·克里格对这场“圣战”进行了深入探讨，以研究十字军东征的真实历史，并分析赫格赛特对中世纪历史的兴趣如何可能影响美国的外交政策及伊朗战争的未来走向。进一步阅读推荐：* Vox记者乔舒亚·凯因关于赫格赛特在特朗普外交团队中角色的文章；* 马修·加布里埃尔与大卫·M·佩里的著作《光明时代：中世纪欧洲的新历史》；* 科德·J·惠特克的《黑色隐喻：现代种族主义如何源自中世纪的种族观念》；* 反诽谤联盟（ADL）关于被指定为仇恨象征的符号百科全书，其中许多与中世纪历史或十字军东征有关。

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, which actually came up during 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 II 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 in 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
• The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe by Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry 
• Black Metaphors: How Modern Racism Emerged From Medieval Race-Thinking by Cord J. Whitaker
• 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

2026-05-01 19:30:00

《穿普拉达的女王2》依然以千禧一代的乐观主义为基调，但其对新恶势力的批判力度有所减弱。这部电影被描述为一部关于千禧一代的童话，讲述主角安迪通过一年的努力在时尚界获得成功的故事。然而，随着现实生活的变迁，这种故事如今显得有些压抑，正如许多童话在深入观察后也并非那么美好。千禧一代始终相信，可以在不牺牲太多或伤害他人的情况下，拥有充实的工作和人际关系。即便他们不得不出卖灵魂和关系，那也是为了获得世界上最时尚的工作，以及通往更伟大事业的跳板。

《穿普拉达的女王2》中，安迪成为《Runway》的特约编辑，发现时尚杂志同样面临行业困境。电影中的反派角色杰伊（由BJ Novak饰演）和本吉（由Justin Theroux饰演）代表了资本和科技巨头的贪婪。杰伊试图通过削减开支来优化杂志，而本吉则因追求消费主义而与《Runway》产生关联。电影呈现了媒体行业在资本驱动下的生存困境：要么成为无灵魂的消费工具，要么被不择手段的亿万富翁收购。

尽管影片对消费主义和资本的批判依然存在，但其商业本质也显而易见。例如，电影与多个知名品牌合作，如可口可乐、星巴克、L'Oréal等，甚至推出印有电影标志的零食包装。这些营销手段让观众难以忽视影片背后的商业利益。此外，本吉与新未婚妻的形象与贝佐斯夫妇惊人相似，而《Vogue》对贝佐斯婚礼的报道也因美化其商业帝国而引发争议。

虽然第一部电影也涉及资本主义现实，但第二部的讽刺意味更明显。影片揭示了资本与艺术之间的矛盾：尽管安迪和米拉达（Miranda Priestly）相信艺术的价值，但她们也深知金钱对艺术生存的必要性。然而，当观众在观看电影时，手中拿着印有电影标志的爆米花桶，而其母公司正是消费主义的象征时，这种“艺术终将胜利”的叙事显得更加讽刺。实际上，这部电影本身已成为资本运作的产物，其结局暗示了资本对艺术的胜利，而非真正的救赎。这或许才是第一部电影未写完的真正结局：一个关于时尚、艺术和新闻业的电影，最终不过是资本利益的延伸，而那些推动其诞生的高管，正是电影所警告的“软裤子”式人物。他们早已获胜，而如果这部电影能带来足够的收益，那便是他们的“幸福结局”。

The Devil Wears Prada is one of the great millennial fairy tales.  

Released in 2006, the year before the financial crisis and Great Recession would come for us all, the movie (based on a novel inspired by writer Lauren Weisberger’s experience working for Anna Wintour at Condé Nast) posits a subversive fantasy: Our heroine Andrea “Andy” Sachs (Anne Hathaway) believes that if she can figure out how to work for Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) for just one year, she can have any job in the industry that she wants. In the end, she learns that if you work hard and stay true to your values, you can have a good, well-paying job in New York City that doesn’t require selling your soul or betraying your friends. 

Given the way life has shaken out for many millennials, that story is now a bit depressing — not unlike the way most fairy tales, upon greater inspection, are. But this generation has always wanted to believe that one can have a fulfilling job and fulfilling personal relationships, without having to suffer too much or inflict suffering on the world. And if we did sell our souls and our relationships, it’d actually be for the chicest job on the planet, and a launchpad to something greater. 

Now, some 20 years later, The Devil Wears Prada has returned for a sequel. Like the original, it runs on millennial optimism. But in this installment, its critiques — about money, society, art, commerce, and beauty — have a little less bite. By the time you get to the fairy tale ending, it’s impossible to ignore the creative and economic circumstances that brought this movie into existence, and the fact that when it comes to media and entertainment, a billionaire is lurking in every corner. 

This time, the devil wears Vuori

The pleasure of the original is how sneakily it convinces you of Miranda Priestly’s importance and innocence. As Andy and the audience come to learn, Miranda isn’t a shallow, unreasonable monster; she is both the guiding force behind every single item in our closets and the product of an unforgiving system that not only diminishes women but also undervalues art and beauty, even when it’s incredibly lucrative. Her toughness is the reason she’s survived this long in an industry that simultaneously lauds her but also despises her for being cutthroat and harsh. As the movie posits over and over again, if a man acted the way Miranda does (and they do), they’d be lauded for it. (This type of justification ultimately unleashed a strange kind of over-correction in the real world that we would eventually deem girlbossery.)

The second movie has more explicit targets. 

In The Devil Wears Prada 2, the media landscape resembles our real one. People no longer care about reading stories, and certainly no one wants to pay for them. Accordingly, newspapers, magazines, and digital outlets have had their budgets cut, and journalists, including Andy, are being laid off in swaths. 

A flimsy first act brings Andy to Runway as a features editor, where she finds out that the fashion tome isn’t immune to the ills of the industry. She immediately finds out that Jay Ravitz (BJ Novak), the nepo baby in charge of Runway’s parent company, Elias-Clarke, wants to “optimize” Runway. (In non-corporate media jargon, he wants the magazine to make the most amount of money while running at the cheapest mode possible.) 

Even if the movie were on mute, the villains would be easy to spot. Novak’s Jay is draped head to toe in monochromatic polyester blends, all in various forms of fancy athleisure. He only wears soft pants — the implication being that his life has been so frictionless that his pants must follow suit, and that, despite being one of the most important people in the company, he’s allowed to show up to work in his gym clothes. It turns out, some of the most evil people in the world wear the softest pants. 

Jay hires a squad of consultants, dressed in drab grays and blues, to slash Runway’s spending. Of course, these people don’t know beauty. They work for McKinsey. 

The other loathsome creature of this film is Benji Barnes (Justin Theroux). Benji, according to Runway gossip, is a tech founder who went soul-searching after a divorce from his beautiful wife, Sasha (Lucy Liu). After discovering Botox, hair transplants, and steroids, he found a new fiancé in Emily Charlton (Emily Blunt), Andy’s across-the-office frenemy from the first movie. 

Benji has more money than he knows what to do with. So he buys art — Klimts and Monets — and designer clothes and watches, all the stuff with the biggest price tags. It’s only a matter of time before Runway catches Benji’s eye, not because he has an appreciation for fashion or beauty, but because he must ravenously, messily consume it, like a toddler razing their first ice cream cone. 

Between Benji and Jay, Runway faces an existential crisis: become a soulless husk that exists to drive consumerism and shareholder value, or sell itself to a tacky billionaire who will, when he moves onto the next shiny thing, sell it or, even worse, feed it into an AI engine. That’s a relatable, if bleak, reality for many media outlets right now. 

Andy, Miranda, and Nigel (Stanley Tucci) come up with a solution that can only be described as a miracle, one that would never work outside of the slightly lobotomized, fairy-tale world of Runway. Without giving too much away, I’ll say that it’s a better finale than the original, one that feels more spiritually in line with the idea that millennials can hard work their way into salvation.  

How critical can The Devil Wears Prada 2 really be?   

Maybe some moviegoers will more readily accept the movie’s fantasy for what it is. After all, the performances are charming and the costuming sparkles. The social commentary criticizing tech billionaires and nepo kids feels current. But one would be forgiven for not fully buying into the razzle-dazzle, given the marketing campaign and circumstances surrounding the movie’s existence.  Because as much as the film positions mindless consumerism and our capitalist overlords as art’s enemy, it very well might not exist without either. 

The Devil Wears Prada 2 is, after all, another sequel brought to the surface from Disney’s bottomless and extremely valuable IP mines. Thanks to an acquisition, those troves are filled with 20th Century Fox’s original material, which includes The Devil Wears Prada. The sequel is the exact kind of movie that entertainment giants and Hollywood executives have enjoyed releasing in the last decade. Those executives, like the movie’s villains, are also probably being advised by beautyless gray ghosts and nepo babies in soft pants too, the kind that excitedly think about AI and how to “streamline” operations (i.e., cutting jobs).  

Studios today aren’t as enthusiastic about taking gambles on films as they once were, especially not mid-budget movies about fashion aimed at young women. They want the financial insurance of existing IP — a toy perhaps. Sequels of beloved films with ardent fanbases are seen as minimal risk. This may explain why this movie contains an unfathomable number of callbacks and Easter eggs to its predecessor while lacking any distinguishing “cerulean” moment. 

What is distinguishable is the marketing and brand tie-ins. Diet Coke (of course, it’s Diet Coke) released specialty cans featuring the movie’s signature red heel logo, and you can apparently order Miranda Priestly’s favorite drink off the Starbucks “secret” menu. The film also, according to CNN, officially partnered with L’Oréal Paris, Smartwater, Samsung Galaxy, Lancôme, TRESemmé, Havaianas, Grey Goose, Google, Mercedes-Benz, Tiffany & Co., Dior, and Valentino fragrance.

This business is tough to watch. 

There’s also the matter of Benji and his new fiancé bearing an uncanny resemblance to Jeff and Lauren Bezos, this year’s extremely controversial Met Gala “honorary chairs.” According to the New York Times, the couple were initially just expected to be the lead sponsors of both the event and the exhibition, but this secondary role, which “comes with a place in the receiving line and a position at the top of the Met steps,” was later announced. The film does not legitimize them; there’s an understanding that if they got their hands on Runway, it would be the end. Yet, Anna Wintour, the real-life Priestly, seems to be softer than her fictional counterpart: In addition to the Met Gala, Vogue covered the Bezos wedding extensively and drew backlash for glamorizing a billionaire whose company is known for numerous on-site employee deaths and aggressive union-busting, among other problems. 

It’s not as if the first movie was immune to the realities of capitalism. Miranda’s (and perhaps Anna Wintour’s too) eternal conundrum is that she believes in art and, at the same time, understands the necessity of money to protect it. Capital allows beauty to exist, and its existence within our current system is, according to Miranda, better than it going away entirely. 

But there’s something askew this time around. It’s more difficult to believe the sequel’s “art will triumph in the end” narrative when you’re eating popcorn from a Devil Wears Prada 2 handbag popcorn bucket ($39.95) and when its parent company is the apex predator of hollow mass consumerism. 

Perhaps that’s the real, more depressing, more millennial ending that the first one left unwritten: A movie about fashion, the sanctity of art and creativity, and the importance of journalism is actually the embodiment of millions of dollars in brand deals, an exercise in unoriginality, and was greenlit by soft pant-wearing executives, just like the ones the film warns us about. They’ve already won. And if this charming but bleak sequel makes enough money to make their investment worth it, that’s their happily ever after.

2026-05-01 18:30:00

2026年4月28日，哈瓦那街头，一辆摩托车上的行人注视着一辆被拖车拖走的受损汽车，背景是描绘美国对古巴实施经济制裁的壁画。文章指出，特朗普近期多次暗示古巴可能是美国政府“政权更迭”计划的下一个目标。自2026年初以来，美国对古巴的“最大压力”政策显著升级，包括限制石油进口，并威胁对向古巴供应石油的国家征收关税，导致墨西哥等国暂停输油。此举使古巴面临类似1962年导弹危机的封锁局面，加剧了其经济困境，如食品价格上涨、垃圾堆积、医疗系统濒临崩溃等。

尽管特朗普认为古巴政权可能因经济压力而自行瓦解，但专家指出，古巴政权具有极强的生存意志，且与委内瑞拉不同，其领导层更加意识形态化和团结，不太可能因压力而轻易妥协。此外，美国国务院正与古巴前领导人卡斯特罗的孙子“拉乌尔”（Raulito）进行接触，但此人更多被视为谈判中介而非潜在新领导人。若与古巴达成协议，仍需满足《赫尔姆斯-伯顿法案》的条件，即必须解除对古巴政权的制裁，这在当前情况下难以实现。

关于古巴民众是否支持美国干预，文章提到古巴反对派对特朗普的政策抱有希望，认为其可能改变现状，但专家强调，古巴民众更关注的是政权是否能改善其生活状况，而非单纯替换领导人。此外，特朗普的政策可能更多受到其幕僚，尤其是国务卿马尔科·鲁比奥（Marco Rubio）的影响。鲁比奥虽在伊朗问题上低调，但长期主张推翻古巴政权，并被视为推动美国对古巴更加强硬立场的关键人物。然而，若古巴政府不愿做出重大让步，鲁比奥的“交易”可能难以实现。同时，随着伊朗危机持续未解，特朗普政府是否优先处理古巴问题仍存疑。

“We may stop by Cuba after we’re finished with this,” President Donald Trump mused earlier this month during remarks about the war in Iran, one of a number of times in recent weeks that he has implied Cuba will be “next” on the administration’s regime change agenda. 

The administration amped up its “maximum pressure” campaign against Cuba in January, shortly after the capture of Venezuelan president and key Cuban ally Nicolas Maduro, severely restricting oil imports to the island as it was already suffering from repeated nationwide blackouts. Now the Pentagon is preparing a range of military options for taking action on the island. Senate Democrats are alarmed enough by the saber-rattling that they’ve sponsored legislation to block military action against the nation. 

Amid the threats, talks are ongoing as well. A US State Department delegation visited Havana earlier this month, the first time a US government aircraft had touched down in Cuba since the short-lived rapprochement under the Obama administration. The American delegation brought a list of demands including economic reforms, the release of political prisoners, compensation for US residents and corporations whose properties were seized in the Cuban revolution, and allowing Starlink internet connectivity on the island. 

Ever since Fidel Castro took power in 1959, every US president has struggled with the question of what to do about the regime Castro founded 90 miles off the US coast. Fresh off decapitation operations in Venezuela and Iran, Trump seems confident that he’s the one who can solve the problem. 

“All my life I’ve been hearing about the United States and Cuba: When will the United States do it? I do believe I’ll be the honor, having the honor of taking Cuba.” he has said.

But what does “taking” Cuba actually mean? The dream for opponents of the regime in both Cuba and the United States is the removal of the communist regime followed by the lifting of the US embargo. But it’s probably more likely to be something short of that. 

This administration seems to have a capacious understanding of the concept of “regime change” that does not appear to imply regime removal. The US has left Maduro’s former Vice President Delcy Rodriguez in power in Venezuela under implied threat of further military action if she steps out of line. After the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and scores of other top officials in Iran, Trump has said the country’s new government is “less radical and much more reasonable,” though unlike Rodriguez, they seem far less amenable to his demands.    

So how might Trump actually “change” the Cuban government, and what would that mean for the Cuban people? 

Will the Venezuela model work in Cuba? 

Cuba has been under a US embargo since the early 1960s, but in Trump’s second term, the pressure campaign against the island has significantly escalated. In early January, after Maduro’s ouster, the US cut off supplies of oil to Cuba from Venezuela, which had previously been its main supplier. Later that month, Trump threatened tariffs against any country supplying oil to the island, prompting countries like Mexico to halt shipments. This is the closest thing to an outright “blockade” of the island since the 1962 missile crisis — exacerbating the nation’s already dire economic situation. Food prices have been rising, trash has been piling up on the streets, and even Cuba’s once vaunted health system is on the verge of collapse, with hospitals canceling surgeries and struggling to keep ventilators running because of power cuts. 

“This is a different level of desperation,” said Chris Sabatini, senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House. But the Cuban regime has weathered economic crises before, notably the “special period” in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, its longtime patron. Despite Trump’s suggestions that the Cuban regime might simply collapse on its own, there’s little evidence that economic pressure alone would cause that to happen.

“What’s not different is the Cuban regime’s almost genetic need to survive and defend itself, and its resistance to anything that could potentially weaken its all-consuming power,” Sabatini added. “They’ve always been willing to just let their people suffer as long as they remain in power.”

There are in fact some signs that the Trump administration is easing up on the oil restrictions. The US allowed a Russian tanker carrying 100,000 tons of crude to reach Cuba at the end of March. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has also indicated her country may restart shipments.

If Cuba’s current leaders won’t accede to Trump’s demands, no matter how much economic pressure is applied, could they be replaced by new ones? Trump may be hoping for a repeat of the Venezuela scenario in which an anti-American leader was replaced by a more pliant one, but that may not be an option in this case. Even if current President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who became communist Cuba’s first non-Castro president in 2021, could be forced into exile, it’s not clear if there’s a more cooperative alternative waiting in the wings. 

“The Venezuelan government was a very different beast,” said Michael Bustamante, a professor of Cuban-American studies at the University of Miami. Whereas the Venezuelan government was splintered into fiefdoms and camps, some of which had long pushed for better relations with the US, the Cuban leadership is much more ideological and unified. “There’s no one who has a consistent track record of having stood for economic liberalization, even in a modest way.”

The State Department has reportedly been negotiating with former Cuban leader Raul Castro’s 41-year-old grandson, also named Raul. “El Cangrejo,” or “the crab,” is seen as relatively business-friendly as well as a conduit to his 94-year-old grandfather, who is officially retired but still widely seen as influential. But “Raulito” is generally seen by experts as a useful go-between rather than a potential new leader. 

In any event, cutting a deal with Cuba that leaves a member of the Castro family in power would violate the spirit if not the letter of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which prohibits the lifting of the embargo on Cuba as long as a government that includes either Fidel or Raul is still in place. 

Do Cubans want American intervention?

Even as the administration’s plans for Cuba have remained somewhat unclear, Trump’s attention to the island has raised hopes among opponents of the Castro regime. Graffitied messages reading “Viva Trump” and “Make Cuba Great Again” have been appearing more often, Boris González Arenas, a prominent journalist and human rights activist in Havana, told Vox.

González Arenas cautioned against trying to analyze Cuban politics on a traditional right-left spectrum. The support for Trump, he said, is because “people perceive that pressure from the president of the United States could change the government in Cuba, and they know that the government is the cause of their situation — of the famine, the lack of medicine. They don’t have access to elections.”

He believes the talks would produce change in the Cuban regime only if they are accompanied by the credible threat of military force. “If Castroist leaders don’t feel that their fate, properties, and even lives, are in real danger, they are going to engage in negotiations without any compromises and real transformations.”

González Arenas said he would support military intervention “only to give sovereignty back to the Cuban people” rather than simply to replace a Castroist dictatorship with a pro-American one. “Cuba is not a country incapable of self-governance; Cuba is a nation kidnapped by a criminal group,” he added. 

In Marco we trust?

In some ways, Cuba seems like a strange target for Trump. Unlike Venezuela, it does not sit atop the world’s largest oil reserves. Unlike Iran, it does not have a nuclear weapons program. While it has long supported other left-wing governments and paramilitary groups in Latin America, it’s hard to argue that it poses an imminent national security threat to the US today. And democracy promotion has never been a major priority for this administration, even in the countries where it has sought to topple regimes. 

Trump may be enticed by the notion of solving a problem that has bedeviled his 12 predecessors in office, but if there’s a driving force behind the current US pressure campaign, it’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Though Rubio has played a conspicuously low-profile role in managing the crisis in Iran, the secretary of state — whose parents were born in Cuba — has long prioritized US efforts to topple the Cuban government, was a leading critic of Obama’s efforts to normalize relations with the Castro regime, and has been the face of this administration’s more assertive posture toward Latin America. 

“The only person in office today, in the whole political landscape in the United States, who would care enough to make Cuba a priority for the United States is Marco Rubio,” said Ricardo Herrero, executive director of the US-based Cuba Study Group. “This makes him both the chief threat, but also the chief opportunity that Cuba is facing.”

He’s an “opportunity” for Cuban leaders because he may be the only person in the United States capable of getting the more than 60-year-old embargo lifted. Rubio has left open the possibility of lifting the embargo in a situation where there were “new people in charge” and major economic reform. But he’s also said Cuba “doesn’t have to change all at once…everyone is mature and realistic here,” suggesting that something short of a complete toppling of the communist government would be acceptable in the near term. 

Depending on what it means in practice, that would be a tough pill to swallow for opponents of the regime on the island, Cuban American exiles, and members of Congress who would have to lift the embargo. It might also be tough to square with the Helms-Burton Act, which sets the holding of free elections and the dismantlement of Cuba’s state security department as conditions for lifting the embargo. 

But in a “Nixon-to-China”-like situation, Rubio’s Cuba hawk bona fides may give him unique credibility for selling a deal both on Capitol Hill and in Miami.  

“It would be a hard sell, but I also think the Cuban American community doesn’t really have any other options,” said the University of Miami’s Bustamante. “‘In Marco we trust’ is sort of the vibe.”

But there won’t be any deal for Rubio to sell if the Cuban government is unwilling to make major compromises. And as the Iran crisis drags on without a resolution in sight, it’s also not clear how much Rubio’s boss will actually prioritize yet another regime change project. 

2026-05-01 18:00:00

里基和罗伊丝·马内尔是来自佛罗里达州奥兰多的28岁 fraternal 双胞胎兄弟。他们从小一起参加摔跤队，周末去公园踢足球，无聊时则在车库打乒乓球。上大学时，两人一同进入佛罗里达州立大学（他们坚称这是巧合），并同住一室。尽管成年后各自从事不同的职业——里基是数据分析师，罗伊丝是3D艺术家——但他们仍合作主持一个关于双胞胎生活的播客，并拥有大量共同朋友。然而，随着年龄增长，他们开始建立独立的社交圈。

研究显示，双胞胎的友谊模式受其类型影响。同卵双胞胎因基因相似，往往拥有更重叠的朋友圈，而异卵双胞胎则更倾向于发展独立的社交关系。里基和罗伊丝在小学和初中时虽分属不同班级，但里基性格外向，主动结交朋友，罗伊丝则较为内向，常被动跟随。这种模式在大学期间进一步显现，他们虽然仍保持联系，但社交活动逐渐以各自伴侣的朋友为主。

在成长过程中，双胞胎可能会经历“去识别化”过程，即通过突出自身差异来减少竞争和嫉妒，例如选择不同的课程和课外活动。这种独立性对他们的社交能力有重要影响。以里基和罗伊丝为例，他们曾因彼此的社交圈而感到孤独，但随着各自进入长期关系，社交重心逐渐转移。里基表示，虽然与罗伊丝分开后交友并不困难，但孤独感更明显。

类似的情况也发生在雅姬和尼克·洛尔-爱德华兹这对双胞胎身上。他们从小因“双胞胎”身份而拥有共同朋友，但随着兴趣分化，逐渐开始独立交友。雅姬偏向艺术与电影，尼克则投身校园政治和模拟联合国。尽管他们仍保持联系，但社交圈已不再重叠。雅姬认为，她更喜欢亲密的友谊，而尼克则在大学期间建立了更广泛的社交网络。

总体而言，双胞胎的友谊模式在成长过程中会发生变化。虽然他们曾共享社交生活，但随着独立身份的形成，社交圈逐渐分化。这种变化不仅影响他们的友谊，也对未来的个人发展产生深远影响。

Ricky and Royce Marnell, 28-year-old fraternal twins from Orlando, Florida, have seldom done anything apart. Together, they competed on the wrestling team throughout their childhood and adolescence. On weekends, they’d venture to the nearby park to play football. When boredom struck, they’d head to the garage for a friendly game of ping pong. When it came to college, the brothers attended Florida State University (which they swear was merely a coincidence), where they also roomed together. Although they have different careers as adults — Ricky is a data analyst and Royce is a 3D artist — they find time to collaborate on a podcast about their twinness. They also share the majority of their friends.

Although the twins were in separate classes in elementary and middle school, Ricky took the lead on cultivating friendships. Royce was shy and uncomfortable, and he struggled to form social connections. So when Ricky, the extrovert, made plans, Royce tagged along. “It was also just always easier to lean on Ricky and just be friends with his friends because I didn’t have to put in any work,” Royce tells Vox. “They were always there.”

In college, they moved as a unit, picking up friends wherever they went — at orientation, outside of the dorm, in the elevator. At Ricky’s recent bachelor party, almost all of the attendees were mutual friends made during undergrad.

From birth, twins’ lives are inextricably linked. Brought up in the same environment at the same time, these siblings often inhabit similar educational, extracurricular, and social spaces, contributing to the expectation that twins share virtually everything, from interests to abilities. Because of this overlap, it makes sense twins would have overlap in their social circles, too. But as twins age and forge unique identities in young adulthood, they may find themselves making friends independently for the first time — a shift impacting both the sibling and friend relationships.

The unique experience of being a twin influences friendship

Being a twin doesn’t necessarily help or hinder the friend-making process, experts say. But having a constant companion may influence how twins approach friendship. When twins actively want to be more alike, they develop a common social network, according to research. At the same time, they often acknowledge being too dependent on one another, which might hold them back from making more friends. 

“The research has shown that there’s no difference in the numbers of friends, but the closeness piece may be a little bit different,” says Laurie Kramer, a professor of applied psychology at Northeastern University. “If you have someone who knows you so well…that you really trust and feel like you can confide in, you’re probably not going to need that many other friends in your life to have that kind of deep friendship, intimate friendship with.”

When it comes to twin social circles, there is plenty of overlap, but twin type impacts the extent of the commonality. Studies have found that identical twins share a majority of their friends while cross-gender fraternal twins had far less overlap.

“If you think about identical twins, they are genetically the same. Their similar genes predispose them to like similar places, people, and events. So they naturally gravitate towards the same kinds of people,” Nancy Segal, a psychology professor and director of the Twin Studies Center at California State University Fullerton, tells Vox. “Fraternal twins tend to go in different directions. They tend to have separate friends, and this is a trend that seems to remain fairly stable across the life span.”

Having a shared social network is usually a matter of convenience. One twin is usually more outgoing, Segal says, and may take the lead when making friends, especially if they’re in the same class as children. Even if they move in different social contexts and form relationships independently, it’s hard to avoid the other twin during playdates at home. 

Ironically, when kids are younger, they’re more likely to set clear boundaries with their twin, Kramer says: I want to play with Carly by myself today. Or they may hang out at their friend’s house without telling their sibling. It can be helpful to have these same frank conversations as they get older if they want to forge an independent relationship with a mutual friend.

In middle school, Royce Marnell remembers Ricky attempting to set such a boundary with him. Every day before class, Ricky and his friends would wander the halls with Royce tagging along. Ordinarily, it wasn’t a problem, but every once in a while, Ricky would tell his brother to kick rocks. “Ricky would just whisper in my ear, like, ‘Let me have this morning to myself,’ or ‘I want to talk to them about something and I don’t want you to be there,’” Royce says.

“Dang, I don’t remember doing that,” Ricky says. “I don’t really remember isolating Royce from my friend group because there was always guilt associated with that.”

That guilt was often reinforced by others in their lives: their parents and mutual friends asking why the other wasn’t invited. If Ricky wasn’t available to hang with a friend he made independently, the kid might reach out to Royce as backup. Their social lives, at times, felt out of their control. 

When a classmate only wants to befriend one twin, the rejection can send the other into a tailspin — because despite their perceived similarities, someone clearly prefers one to the other. “The existential questions about who we are and our personalities and [which] people like us, it heightens those concerns in a way that I think people with a different-age sibling just don’t [understand],” Kramer says. (As with all relationships, it can be difficult to articulate those unintelligible, intangible qualities that attract you to someone and repel you from others, even if they are a twin.)

As twins pursue independent lives, their friend groups diverge

By high school, twins start to forge their own paths and consider who they are as a unique individual opposed to a unit. Through a process known as deidentification, twins might play up their differences to minimize competition and jealousy, by, say, enrolling in different classes and extracurricular activities. “We see that during that time, there may be much more of an interest in each twin developing their own friendships,” Kramer says.

In college, this separation intensifies if the siblings attend different schools. On their own for the first time — not as one half of a pair, but as just another student — they embark on a potentially new experience of making friends solo. In her research, Kramer says fraternal twins are more eager to break free from their sibling, as opposed to identical twins who understand the inevitability of independence, but want to delay it.

This interdependence might hold twins back from expanding their social networks. In Kramer’s research, identical twins who attended the same college reported relying on their twin in moments of loneliness, perhaps to their detriment. “Some of them did say that they felt a little bit too comfortable with this arrangement because their sibling was always there and available,” Kramer says. “It didn’t put as much of a pressure on them to go out to be a little more extroverted than they might ordinarily prefer.”

Because the reality is, twins will have to live independently, even if they continue to live near (or with) their sibling. Employers and significant others typically don’t look for pairs. Having the social skills and confidence to forge new relationships without their twin as backup is valuable in the long term.  

It took until college for Jaclyn and Nick Lore-Edwards, 26, to transition from being known as “the twins” to simply “Jaclyn” and “Nick.” Growing up, the siblings had mutual friends; Jaclyn initially formed the relationships in elementary school, and those kids eagerly welcomed Nick. They both had the same interests — theater, books, dance, piano — and genuinely enjoyed being around each other, so they never had a reason to hang out with separate people. Being a twin meant strength in numbers.

“If I’m joining a new club and I don’t know if I’m going to know anyone, at least my brother is there and I can talk to him so I’m not just sitting by myself,” Jaclyn, a video editor and comedian, says. “I feel like that was definitely a big anxiety relief for me to always have him there.”

In addition to going to different colleges, their interests eventually diverged, and Jaclyn and Nick started meeting new people. Nick got involved with campus politics and model UN, while Jaclyn leaned into film and art, and each formed friendships with similarly minded people. Still, the act of making friends on their own was a relatively new experience. Having a twin, they say, was good practice for how to be a friend, not necessarily how to make them. “That was probably the first time I felt I have to do this alone,” Nick, a data scientist, says. “I can’t just rely on my sister to start talking to someone.”

While Jaclyn was the initiator in childhood, Nick thrived on his own in college: He came out as gay and gained confidence in himself. The friends he made knew exactly who he was and loved him for it. Jaclyn sensed that their high school friends, and by some extension her, had lost their luster, that the conversation really wasn’t that deep. “I could feel, when he would come home, maybe a little less interested in being with our friend group,” Jaclyn says. “That hurt my feelings. Me and you are best friends. But it wasn’t about me and our friends. He finally felt, I think, good at college.” Meanwhile, Jaclyn’s social circle was more intimate than Nick’s wide-ranging cohort, she says; her preferred friendship style mirrors that of a twin relationship. “I like having one really close friend or one person to go do stuff with,” she says.

Although they both live in New York City, they’ve still maintained their independent college friend groups. They represent the unique, individual adults they are now, not the packaged duo they once were.

While college was a period of mutual friend-making for Ricky and Royce Marnell, the twins from Orlando, their social lives did eventually split once they entered long-term relationships; their partners brokered their new adult friendships. After spending the first two decades of their lives under one roof, the Marnells now live with their significant others and with that comes responsibilities and obligations beyond their twin. Ricky’s planning a wedding; Royce just moved.

As a result of their progressing romantic lives, their shared experienced one has seemed to fracture. They don’t spend as much time with their mutual friends — if they do, it’s when college pals come to town — and instead most of their socializing is done with their respective partners’ friends. Before Ricky’s recent bachelor party, their group hadn’t gotten together in a handful of years. 

“I wouldn’t say it’s harder to make friends now without Ricky,” Royce says, “but I would say it feels more lonely.”

2026-05-01 05:35:00

2026年4月30日，特朗普在华盛顿特区白宫发表言论，呼吁田纳西州州长努力调整国会选区地图，以“为我们赢得一个额外的席位”。此举表明，在最高法院最近关于路易斯安那州诉Callais案的6比3裁决后，共和党人正计划通过更激进的选区划分策略，在2026年中期选举中获得更多席位。该裁决推翻了《美国投票权法案》中禁止种族性选区划分的条款，进一步削弱了该法案的效力，并为共和党激进划分选区提供了支持。特朗普去年曾推动白宫施压得克萨斯州进行罕见的中期选区调整，使该州可能新增约五个共和党席位。尽管此前红州选区划分战似乎对共和党不利，但近期佛罗里达州立法机构通过新地图为共和党赢得四个席位，路易斯安那州也暂停即将开始的国会初选，以便根据裁决调整选区。若田纳西州共和党落实特朗普的提议，该州也可能为共和党增加一个席位。此外，作者提到，由于华盛顿特区今日首次在本年度出现日落时间为晚上8点，建议读者暂时放下政治新闻，享受阳光，待5月再回来。

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: After a major Supreme Court decision, President Donald Trump is pushing Republicans to redistrict even more aggressively. 

What’s happening? On Thursday, Trump said in a post that Tennessee’s governor would “work hard to correct” the state’s congressional map in order to “give us one extra seat” in Congress. 

It’s the latest sign that, following the new Supreme Court opinion, Republicans will try to pick up even more seats ahead of the 2026 midterms by further gerrymandering multiple different states, including Tennessee, Louisiana, and Florida.

What’s the context? On Wednesday, the Court ruled 6-3 in Louisiana v. Callais to strike down a provision of the Voting Rights Act banning racial gerrymandering. 

As my colleague Ian Millhiser explained, the upshot of the ruling isn’t just that the Court’s six conservative justices have further weakened the Voting Rights Act; the decision is a full-throated endorsement of the most aggressive gerrymandering schemes possible, and Republican politicians — including Trump — are taking note.

How did this start? Trump is also the one who kicked all of this off last year, when his White House decided to pressure Texas into a rare mid-decade redistricting scheme. Texas successfully created about five more Republican seats in the US House — probably — by redrawing its maps, but in the process, launched a wider war. 

How’s the math looking? Until recently, it seemed like the redistricting wars could have backfired on Republicans, or at best ended with a stalemate. Earlier this month, Virginia voters approved a referendum to draw new maps creating four additional Democratic seats, giving the party a slight edge nationally. 

Since then, however, Florida has gotten involved; earlier this week, its legislature passed new maps netting four new Republican seats. On Thursday, Louisiana also suspended its about-to-begin congressional primaries to give it time to redraw its maps in response to the Callais decision. And if Tennessee Republicans make good on Trump’s post, the party could net another seat too. 

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Hi readers — if you, like me, happen to live in Washington, DC, I have some fairly specific good news for you. Today, the sun will set at 8 pm here for the first time this year, and we won’t get a sunset earlier than 8 pm again until August. With that in mind, let’s go log off and enjoy some sunshine — we’ll see you back here in May (which is, somehow, tomorrow).