After this summer’s Trump fundraiser backlash and boycotts, SoulCycle’s CEO has resigned

Three months months after SoulCycle became a national conversation due to backlash against an investor’s fundraiser for President Donald Trump, the company’s CEO, Melanie Whelan, has resigned.

“We’d like to inform you that we recently reached a mutual agreement with our board in which Melanie will resign from her position as CEO and director effective today,” Adrienne Gemperle, SoulCycle’s chief people officer, wrote in an email to SoulCycle staff on November 26. Vox obtained the email from an employee at the boutique fitness studio. “Melanie will stay on in an advisory capacity to the company.”

“I’m deeply grateful for the …

The latest news about SDNY’s investigation into Rudy Giuliani, explained

The investigation into Rudy Giuliani and his associates by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) is heating up, according to a set of new reports — and new details suggest prosecutors are looking into matters near the heart of the Ukraine scandal.

The new reports cite subpoenas sent out to various associates of President Trump’s personal attorney by SDNY. The subpoenas reveal that prosecutors are looking into Giuliani’s business and finances, that they’re exploring his contacts with former top Ukrainian officials, and that they’re investigating a host of potential crimes.

Back in October, …

The insect collector who gave us stop motion

Insect adultery was the start of an animation revolution.

In this episode of Vox Almanac, I explore the delightfully strange beginning of stop motion animation. In a stop motion movie, an animator arranges an object, takes a picture, slightly adjusts the positioning, and then does it all over again. When the pictures are played in succession, it looks like motion. Though people have been experimenting with stop motion since the beginning of film, the new art really took off when an insect collector named Wladyslaw Starewicz wanted to see his beetles move.

His 1912 film, The Cameraman’s Revenge, was …

Money Talks: This couple had 6 dogs. It got really expensive.

Welcome to Money Talks, a series in which we interview people about their relationships with money, their relationships with each other, and how those relationships inform one another.

Megan and Logan Wolf, both 34, have been married for 11 years and live in the Bay Area with their two children — and four dogs. Logan works in law enforcement and Megan stays at home to manage the household. Logan lovingly says the two of them juggling it all is like “managing a small business.”

When they moved from the Bay Area to Tucson, Arizona, in 2010, their household started to …

Vox Sentences: A fight over a pin — and war crimes

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Trump official resigns in dispute over Navy SEAL

  • Defense Secretary Mark Esper asked for Navy Secretary Richard Spencer’s resignation on Sunday. Esper said he’d lost confidence in Spencer over a deal he allegedly struck that would have seen Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher face military discipline while also ensuring President Donald Trump received the outcome he desired in Gallagher’s case. [AP News /

Google fired an employee who questioned its work with Customs and Border Protection

A former Google employee who helped organize a petition against Google working with US immigration agencies has been fired from the company in what some are viewing as an attack on worker activism within the search giant’s rank and file.

Rebecca Rivers, a former Google software engineer, announced on her personal Twitter account that her employment had been terminated. According to Bloomberg, Google announced today that it fired four employees for what it called “clear and repeated violations” of its data-security policies, in a note sent to its staff and confirmed by a spokesperson for the company.

The move …