Tipping culture, a crater in Madagascar, and more picks for this week

Hi all! I’m Sean Collins, and I oversee Vox’s general assignment team, working with senior reporters Li Zhou and Nicole Narea to answer key questions about the biggest news of the day. 

Of late, that has meant stories on everything from drama threatening to derail the world’s most important climate conference to a piece untangling the long, winding history of failed Palestine-Israel peace negotiations. 

So much is happening all the time that it can feel difficult to know what to pay attention to and how to spend your time, energy, and even money. But don’t worry: When it comes to current events, we’re here to help you, including right now. 

This week, like every week, my colleagues produced an impressive amount of amazing work; here are a few stories in particular you should know about — they’re all more than worthy of your time.

—Sean Collins, editor 

It’s just a tip 

It’s no secret tipping isn’t the best. Its racist history, creation of toxic power dynamics, and use in legalizing sub-minimum-wage labor make it fraught. But Vox’s Emily Stewart, in her signature witty and approachable way, reminds us that it doesn’t have to be that big a deal. If you can afford to give a buck or three to the people working hard to give you the goods and services you want and need, you should do it. And if you can’t, you shouldn’t stress yourself about it.

The “apocalyptic” humanitarian situation in Gaza, explained by one quote 

Sometimes suffering becomes so vast it can be hard to comprehend. What does it mean for more than 17,000 people to have been killed in two months? To wander once-familiar streets now littered with the facades of fallen buildings, hungry and thirsty and perhaps having buried your loved ones, with safe spaces few and far between? Senior reporter Li Zhou makes incomprehensible suffering legible using the words of Unicef’s James Elder as a lens. Read her piece, and something that seems impossible to understand will become crystal clear. 

📹 What’s inside this crater in Madagascar 

The Vox video team discovered a fairly new settlement in a remote, formerly volcanic crater in Madagascar, and this short film chronicles the team’s obsession with finding out who lives there and why. As I watched, I wondered: What if the people living in the crater moved to such a difficult-to-access place because they just want to be left alone? The video doesn’t address that question in its text, but its subtext is a rich meditation on exploration, modern mysteries, and the dark side of discovery. 

How the keffiyeh became a symbol of the Palestinian cause

Our newest colleague, Abdallah Fayyad, delves into the history of the keffiyeh, a scarf often worn by Palestinians that’s taken on a lot of political significance. Few other garments create such visceral reactions — from the joy Abdallah felt seeing it in Home Alone 2 to the rage it has caused in those opposed to the Palestinian cause (he notes two students of Palestinian descent shot recently in Vermont were wearing keffiyehs) — and this piece will give you a wealth of knowledge about why that is. 

The Sentences newsletter 

If you’re not reading Vox’s flagship newsletter, you’re missing out. This month, senior correspondent Dylan Scott’s taking it over, and he’s spent this week filling inboxes with insightful riffs on Vox stories, including responding to Rachel Cohen’s piece on motherhood with a moving essay about fatherhood and Constance Grady’s story on the word of the year with a delightful narrative on language, time, and aging. He’s writing great stuff that serves as a unique guide and companion to everything we do at Vox. Sign up, and look out for drops at 3 pm ET each day. Your inboxes will be better for it.

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