Vox Sentences: The Fed hasn't sounded this happy about the economy in years. That might be bad.

Welcome to Vox Sentences, our news bulletin breaking down the day's biggest stories.

1. Give me rate hikes, but not yet

Fed chair Janet Yellen. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

• The Fed kept interest rates the same today. They haven't been raised in the past six years since the financial crisis hit.

  [Vox / Danielle Kurtzleben]

• The announcement was more optimistic about the state of the economy than other recent Fed statements, leading some observers to conclude that the Fed "remains on course to raise its benchmark interest rate as soon as June."

  [NYT / Binyamin Appelbaum]

• If you're not a monetary policy nerd: low interest rates, all else being equal, are good for growth/jobs but increase inflation. So raising them could keep inflation in check but hurt growth.

• But as the Fed noted in its statement, inflation is if anything too low — and it's getting lower still thanks to cheap gas.

  [Federal Reserve]

• Too low inflation can be a serious problem that keeps the economy from growing as fast as it could be.

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

• Inflation's also below the Fed's own target of 2 percent (it's closer to 1.5).

  [FRED / St. Louis Fed]

• The view inside the Fed, reportedly, is that this will pass and they'll be close to the target soon. But they've been undershooting the target for years now.

  [The Economist / Greg Ip]

• The job market still has a ways to go to recover, especially if you consider the millions of people who've dropped out of the labor force because it was so weak.

  [Economic Policy Institiute]

• For all these reasons, some banks have been pushing back their predictions of when the Fed will raise rates. Morgan Stanley now thinks it won't happen until March 2016.

  [Reuters / Michael Flaherty and Howard Schneider]

• Labor and community groups have been pushing for the Fed to delay raising rates, on the grounds that it would slow the recovery and hurt workers.

  [NYT / Binyamin Appelbaum]

2. Cruel and unusual

Per-Anders Pettersson/Liaison

A death chamber in Texas. (Per-Anders Pettersson / Hulton Archive via Getty Images)

• Warren Lee Hill, an intellectually disabled man with an IQ of 70, was executed by the state of Georgia last night.

  [NYT / Alan Blinder]

• The Supreme Court declined to stay the execution, with only Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor dissenting.

  [LA Times / Jenny Jarvie]

• Previously, Hill had his lethal injection delayed within hours of its scheduled time. On three separate occasions.

• The Supreme Court has barred the execution of the "mentally retarded" since 2002.

  [NYT / David Stout]

• And last year, it barred states from using flat IQ cutoffs to determine who is and isn't eligible for execution.

  [Slate / Emily Bazelon]

• But that didn't stop Georgia from executing Hill, and Texas is scheduled to execute a man with an IQ of 67 tomorrow.

  [Dallas Observer / Stephen Young]

3. Russian roulette

Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras. (Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

• Greece's new far-left governing party has called for an end to sanctions on Russia.

  [FT / Sam Jones, Kerin Hope, Courtney Weaver]

• The prime minister spoke out against new sanctions in reaction to recent violence in Ukraine from Russian-backed militant, while Syriza's energy minister railed against the entire US/European embargo.

• Among other things, this really pisses off Germany and the rest of the EU.

  [Bloomberg View / Leonid Bershidsky]

• And that in turn makes a deal to keep Greece in the EU and/or prevent a big crisis harder to reach. Just great news, all around.

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

4. Misc.

• Creating mutant super-mosquitos with a genetic "kill switch" is certainly a way to fight dengue fever.

  [The Atlantic / Nicholas St. Fleur]

• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is often treated as a punchline. This is what it's really like.

  [Vox / German Lopez]

• It's kind of nuts how much better NFL kickers have gotten over the years.

  [FiveThirtyEight / Benjamin Morris]

• Everett Washington is a psychologist who studies forgiveness. After his mother was murdered, he decided to use what he had learned to forgive her killer.

  [The Atlantic / Olga Khazan]

• Community's Gillian Jacobs definitely did not Britta this short documentary on Grace Murray Hopper, one of the founders of computer science.

  [FiveThirtyEight / Gillian Jacobs]

5. Verbatim

• "The main requirement for blending into a DC scene, according to Ms. Bender: 'They can’t be too trendy looking.'"

  [WSJ / Erich Schwartzel]

• "Parmenides goes up to the counter. 'Same as always?' asks the barista. Parmenides nods."

  [Slate Star Codex / Scott Alexander]

• "Not surprisingly, Mr. Pajak was not pleased when the news reached him that one of his partners in Dream had allegedly discussed trying to have him murdered."

  [The Globe and Mail / Greg McArthur]

• "Let me put it this way — I hope he’s their nominee."

  [Nancy Pelosi on Mitt Romney, to The Hill / Mike Lillis]

• "If someone intent on locating a police officer still found themselves unable to do so, which strains credulity, there is a widely known, pre-mobile phone app called 911 that anyone can use, anywhere in any American city, to summon police immediately to any location."

  [The Atlantic / Conor Friedersdorf]

• "Another audience member asked [Jake] Johnson to explain the difference between acting for movies and for TV. 'I guess on New Girl,' he replied, 'you’re not going to see Chris Messina’s dick.'"

  [NY Mag / Jada Yuan]

Correction: This post originally said the New York Times article about Warren Lee Hill's execution was written by Warren Lee Hill. It was written by Alan Blinder.

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