1. Killing in Peshawar
Activists of Pakistan Tehreek e Insaaf (PTI) light candles for the victims of an attack by Taliban gunmen on a school in Peshawar, in Karachi on December 16, 2014. (Asif Hassan/AFP/Getty Images)
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At least 135 people, including over 100 children, were killed by Taliban gunmen at a school in Peshawar, Pakistan.
[Vox / Amanda Taub]
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A Taliban spokesman: "We selected the army's school for the attack because the government is targeting our families and females. We want them to feel the pain."
[Reuters / Jibran Ahmad and Mehreen Zahra-Malik]
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Peshawar is near Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), where the Taliban is heavily active.
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While most of the deaths were due to gunshots, some of the attackers also blew themselves up when Pakistani security arrived.
[NYT / Ismail Khan and Salman Masood]
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At least in part, the killings are likely intended to fight perceptions of Taliban weakness after recent Pakistani military wins against them.
[Vox / Amanda Taub]
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Civilian terrorism casualties in Pakistan had been falling considerably before the attack.
[FiveThirtyEight / Carl Bialik]
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The Afghan Taliban condemned the Pakistani Taliban, calling the attack "against the basics of Islam."
[Reuters]
2. Jeb the Explorer
Andy Jacobsohn / Getty
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Jeb Bush is forming an exploratory committee for a potential 2016 presidential run.
[Vox / Matt Yglesias]
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It's been eight years since Bush was Florida governor, so here's a reminder of his views on the issues.
[Vox / Andrew Prokop]
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Bush is a favorite of GOP donors, alongside Gov. Chris Christie and Mitt Romney.
[NYT / Nicholas Confessore]
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Bush has taken some stands the GOP base doesn't like, but he's not that much less conservative than Romney or Sen. John McCain.
[FiveThirtyEight / Nate Silver]
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Bush's support for Common Core education standards is supposedly a liability, but education just isn't that big of an issue in presidential campaigns.
[Vox / Libby Nelson]
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Brian Beutler: Obama's immigration executive action doomed Bush's candidacy.
[New Republic / Brian Beutler]
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Matt Yglesias: No, it actually lets Jeb be pro-immigration but anti-Obama.
[Vox / Matt Yglesias]
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This sets up the potential for a Bush-Clinton general election, for better or worse.
[NYT / Ross Douthat]
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Sen. Marco Rubio, a fellow Floridian, says Bush's announcement won't affect his own decision on whether to run.
[The Hill / David McCabe]
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But having another immigration-sympathetic Floridian in the race does reduce Rubio's odds of victory considerably.
[New Republic / Danny Vinik]
3. Russia tries and fails to save the ruble
A Russian ruble. (Центробанк РФ)
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A dramatic increase in interest rates by Russia's central bank failed to stop its currency, the ruble, from falling even further compared to the dollar.
[NYT / Andrew Kramer]
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Higher interest rates also have the downside of slowing economic growth, which will prolong Russia's slump.
[Vox / Matt Yglesias]
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If rate hikes won't work, Russia might have to resort to an IMF bailout or capital controls, which are fairly extreme measrures.
[Washington Post / Matt O'Brien]
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The plummeting price of oil bears a lot of the blame for the ruble's fall. Here's why oil's getting so cheap.
[Vox / Brad Plumer]
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The crisis is terrible news for countries like Tajikistan that rely on remittances from workers in Russia, and for countries like Germany that export to Russia a lot.
[BuzzFeed / Tom Gara]
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The crash has led Russians to convert their money into dollars or euros and buy up durable consumer goods, like furniture and jewelry, to keep their savings from losing value.
[FT / Jack Farchy and Courtney Weaver]
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Apple has halted online sales in Russia, saying the ruble is too unstable.
[USA Today / Mike Snider and Jon Swartz]
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Dan Drezner: Worsening economic circumstances could force Putin to back off on his support for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
[Washington Post / Dan Drezner]
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"For several weeks, Russians were receiving the news about the fall of their national currency with a serenity bordering on nonchalance … But this humorous attitude gave way to outright panic on Monday."
[Businessweek / Leonid Ragozin]
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Obama is set to sign new anti-Russia sanctions, which certainly won't help Putin turn the economy around.
[NYT / Peter Baker]
4. Misc.
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Torture doesn't work. Befriending interrogation targets does.
[The Atlantic / Olga Khazan]
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This island in Alaska is already being destroyed by climate change.
[Grist / Kate Sheppard]
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Indianapolis Colts QB Andrew Luck's unique approach to trash-talking: complimenting the opposing team's defensive players when they hit him.
[WSJ / Kevin Clark]
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A federal appeals court ruled that requiring condoms in porn doesn't violate the First Amendment.
[Washington Post / Hunter Schwarz]
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This year, it costs 1.66¢ to make a penny and 8.09¢ to make a nickel.
[Washington Post / Christopher Ingraham]
5. Verbatim
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"Tree sales are a lot less like Survivor with Christmas trees and a lot more like the Knights Templar with Christmas trees."
[Men's Health / Patrick Wensink]
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"The flight deck is the bustling hub of this nuclear-powered behemoth, which is home to 5,200 sailors and officers for nearly 10 months at a time."
[NYT / Eric Schmitt]
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"His entire Hollywood career had been built on devising heinous and impossible situations to test a person's mettle, and now he had wound up in just such a mess."
[The Hollywood Reporter / Scott Johnson]
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"Last year, inspectors found that a Tennessee lumber mill was employing a 14-year-old who was operating a chainsaw, removing lumber from a conveyor, and loading scrap wood into a wood chipper."
[The Atlantic / Alana Semuels]
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"Every generation of studio titan is less apologetic than the one before."
[Grantland / Mark Harris]
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"Who is to say that it is me who is using my body correctly — me, sitting there, lumpen, eating room-service steaks at Caesars as I hunch over a keyboard for the ninth hour of a day and try to get 5,000 steps from my Fitbit, getting unsolicited diet hints from female fighters, who genuinely seem to want to help me."
[Matter / Taffy Brodesser-Akner]
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Correction: This post originally stated Peshawar is in the FATA. It's not; it's just close-by. We regret the error.
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