Everything you need to read about the huge US-Cuba deal

1. Cuba more libre

President Barack Obama shakes hands with Cuban President Raul Castro during the official memorial service for former South African President Nelson Mandela at FNB Stadium December 10, 2013 in Johannesburg, South Africa. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

• President Obama and Cuban dictator Raul Castro have brokered a deal to establish diplomatic relations for the first time since 1961.

  [Vox / Amanda Taub]

• Cuba gets: a US embassy in Havana, three Cuban spies freed from US prisons, eased travel and banking restrictions, and more remittances from Cuban-Americans.

• The US gets: the release of American Alan Gross, who was imprisoned in Cuba, the release of 53 political prisoners, and increased internet access for Cubans.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• Pope Francis and the Canadian government played key roles behind the scenes in making the deal happen.

  [Vox / Max Fisher]

• Travel restrictions are eased, but most Americans still won't be able to vacation there.

  [Vox / Dara Lind]

• One possible motive for the deal: Venezuela, Cuba's biggest ally, is struggling economically due to low oil prices.

  [Bloomberg / Ezra Fieser]

• A counter-argument: "Tempting as it may be, I'd caution against seeing Cuba news in context of Venezuela decline. This is the deal Raul has offered for years."

  [Nick Miroff]

• Obama can't formally lift the embargo on Cuba without Congress, but he can severely limit it.

  [Vox / Amanda Taub]

• Here are seven reasons he should try to lift the embargo entirely.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• Republicans like Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) (who are both Cuban-American) and Jeb Bush are outraged by the deal.

  [Politico / Katie Glueck and Seung Min Kim]

• Sen. Robert Menendez, the chair of the Foreign Relations committee, who's Cuban-American and a Democrat: the deal rewards "brutal behavior."

  [The Hill / Peter Sullivan]

• There's no denying that Cuba has a horrific human rights record.

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

• But most Cuban-Americans disagree with Rubio, Cruz, and Menendez, and want the embargo to end.

  [Vox / Dara Lind]

2. The Fed's slight wording change

• The Fed had another regular meeting and announced it expects to be "patient in beginning to normalize the stance of monetary policy."

  [Federal Reserve]

• Translation: don't worry, we won't raise interest rates for a while.

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

• The statement dropped a line saying interest rates would be low for a "considerable time," but the "patient" language reassured markets that increases wouldn't come too soon.

• Two members of the Federal Open Market Committee dissented from the decision, saying the Fed wasn't tightening fast enough.

  [NYT / Binyamin Appelbaum]

• But Minnesota Fed chief Narayana Kocherlakota thought the statement erred in the other direction, and won't do enough to push inflation to 2 percent, which he thinks would help the recovery.

  [FT / Robin Harding]

• Fed observer Greg Ip: "What could be better than an economy converging rapidly on full employment? A central bank in no mood to get in the way."

  [The Economist / Greg Ip]

3. Interview canceled

• Sony is pulling the Seth Rogen-James Franco comedy The Interview from theaters.

  [Vox / Todd VanDerWerff]

• The movie centers around an attempt to assassinate North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un.

• Theaters showing the film have gotten terrorist threats from the hackers who've been targeting Sony.

  [Vox / Kelsey McKinney]

• North Korea, which had been widely suspected in the hacks, was confirmed as the source by US government sources today.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• Sony had previously said that theaters could opt out of showing the movie.

  [Vox / Todd VanDerWerff]

• A number of major theater chains, including AMC and Carmike Cinemas, had already declined to show it.

  [Deadline / Jen Tamato and Dominic Patten]

• Here's background on the hacks, if you haven't been following the story.

  [Vox / Tim Lee]

• Judd Apatow: theaters deciding not to show the movie is "disgraceful."

  [Vox / Tim Lee]

• One possible way forward: releasing the movie online, right now.

  [The Verge / Bryan Bishop]

• For whatever it's worth, the movie has gotten middling reviews.

  [Rotten Tomatoes]

4. Misc.

• The Colombian rebel group FARC has declared a unilateral ceasefire after 50 years of war.

  [Vox / Amanda Taub]

• White peoples' social circles tend to be overwhelmingly white, reinforcing their structural advantages.

  [Slate / Reihan Salam]

• 6 ways to control crime without cops.

  [Rolling Stone / José Martín]

• This is almost certainly the most bizarre thought experiment I've read this year.

  [Uehiro Center / John Donohue]

• How to make ponies run across your Gchat window.

  [The Atlantic / Shirley Li]

• The new Hobbit movie takes 2 minutes for every page of the novel it's adapting; Twilight took a little over 13 seconds per page.

  [FiveThirtyEight / Walt Hickey]

• The Internet loves cats. So why is Cat Fancy dying?

  [NY Mag / Abraham Reisman]

• The real reason doctors' offices have old, crappy magazines: people steal the new ones.

  [Business Insider / Kevin Loria]

5. Verbatim

• "I like to think I'm a pretty good musician, but he's in a whole other league."

  [Elton John on Stevie Wonder via GQ UK / George Chesterton]

• "It’s strange how a simple change in gait can bring on such crushing humiliation."

  [Slate / Kevin Zawacki]

• "The president used to be a buffalo chasing an eagle that was reciting Keats from memory, and now it’s just a text that Sasha Obama sent her second-best friend Melissa M. during fourth period."

  [The Toast / Mallory Ortberg]

• "Children who received more attention and nurturing at home tended to have higher IQs."

  [National Geographic / Yudhijit Bhattacharjee]

• "In Denmark, someone who enters the labor force at an average salary loses 86 percent of earnings to a combination of taxes and lost eligibility for welfare benefits; that number is only 37 percent in the United States."

  [NYT / Neil Irwin]

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple of big issues with relying on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on:

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. And we can’t do that if we have a paywall.

So even though advertising is still our biggest source of revenue, we also seek grants and reader support. (And no matter how our work is funded, we have strict guidelines on editorial independence.)

If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today? Any amount helps.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via