1. Bibi goes to Boehner
Obama and Netanyahu on October 1, 2014. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
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House Speaker John Boehner has invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress on February 11.
[The Speaker of the House of Representatives]
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Netanyahu would become the first foreign leader since Winston Churchill to address Congress three times.
[The Atlantic / Russell Berman]
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Boehner says he did not consult the White House before inviting Netanyahu.
[Sean Sullivan]
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Max Fisher: "By reaching out to Netanyahu directly and setting up a visit without the knowledge of the White House, he is undermining not just Obama's policies but his very leadership of US foreign policy."
[Vox / Max Fisher]
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Netanyahu will speak on Iran; he's taken a harder tack than Obama with regards to their nuclear ambitions.
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His visit comes as a bipartisan group of senators is trying to enact harsher sanctions against Iran.
[NYT / Michael Shear]
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Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations committee: "The more I hear from the administration and its quotes, the more it sounds like talking points that come straight out of Tehran."
[CNN / Dana Bash and Deirdre Walsh]
2. Yemen
Houthi rebels. (Mohammed Hamoud/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
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The Houthis, a Shia rebel group resisting the Sunni-dominated Yemeni government, took control of the presidential palace in the country's capital of Sana'a.
[Vox / Zack Beauchamp]
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As of tonight, President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi appears to have made a deal with the Houthis, acquiescing to many of their demands in exchange for withdrawing troops from the palace and other areas.
[NYT / Shuaib Almosawa and Kareem Fahim]
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The deal reportedly includes a Houthi role in drafting a new constitution, greater Houthi representation in parliament, and turning Yemen into a federal state.
[Washington Post / Ali al-Mujahed and Hugh Naylor]
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NYT: "Analysts and diplomats said on Wednesday that the Houthis had become Yemen’s de facto ruling power."
[NYT / Shuaib Almosawa and Kareem Fahim]
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Many, including the US, claim that deposed president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who left office in 2012 following the Arab Spring, has been supporting the Houthis.
[AFP]
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The Houthi rebellion is totally separate from the rebellion in southern Yemen by al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) and Ansar al-Sharia, a related group. AQAP has claimed responsibility in the Charlie Hebdo attack, though the true extent of its involvement is still unclear.
[Vox / Zack Beauchamp]
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Under the deal, southern Yemen will also get greater participation in government, along with the Houthis.
[Washington Post / Ali al-Mujahed and Hugh Naylor]
3. Scot-free
Photos of Officer Darren Wilson, found on Facebook by Yahoo News
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According to a New York Times report, ex-Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson won't face federal charges for shooting and killing Michael Brown.
[Vox / German Lopez]
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The Justice Department has the option of pursuing charges against Wilson for violating Brown's civil rights, even though a grand jury declined to charge Wilson with murder or manslaughter in November.
[Vox / German Lopez]
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The department's investigation of the Ferguson Police Department in general, however, remains open.
[NYT / Matt Apuzzo and Michael Schmidt]
4. Misc.
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The Senate voted down an amendment saying that human activity is causing global warming 50-49 because individual senators don't accept science and Senate rules don't accept arithmetic.
[Vox / Brad Plumer]
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Here's how Paper Magazine made sure their website could hold up when their Kim Kardashian photoshoot "broke the internet."
[Medium / Paul Ford]
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Apocalypse Now, Zodiac, and a slew of Bond movies disappear from Netflix on February 1.
[Slate / Dee Lockett]
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A stranger halfway across the world emails you to say he's about to kill himself. What do you do? What can you do?
[Washington Post / Cynthia McCabe]
5. Verbatim
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"To even try to answer them is to enter a terrain where every assertion starts to sound like a plotline from Homeland."
[Newsweek / Alexander Nazaryan]
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"The show was a sexualized riff on the Island of Misfit Toys, plus industrial metal (the soundtrack was Rammstein)."
[Matter / Emily Witt]
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"The only operetta ever written about Subpart F of the Internal Revenue Code made its debut on a rainy Sunday evening in May 1990, in a Fifth Avenue apartment overlooking Central Park."
[Businessweek / Zachary Mider]
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"Here's how Killer Mike says you should ask someone on a date: 'I like you. Do you like me? If so, let's go get some lunch.'"
[The Verge / Lizzie Plaugic]
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"People ask me why I ski.1 … 1No one has ever asked me this. No one ever asks people questions like this."
[Jason Kottke]
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"In a classic study of prisoners in Massachusetts, psychiatrist Stuart Grassian of Harvard identified a specific psychiatric syndrome associated with solitary confinement, whose symptoms include hyper-responsivity to external stimuli, such as noise; illusions and hallucinations; panic attacks; difficulties with thinking, concentration, and memory; intrusive obsessional thoughts; the emergence of primitive aggressive ruminations; overt paranoia; and problems with impulse control, sometimes involving violence and self-mutilation."
[Vanity Fair / Ted Conover]
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- Vox Sentences: On Iran, a resolute House
- Vox Sentences: Mr. Netanyahu goes to Washington
- Vox Sentences: A State of the Union cheat sheet
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