Vox Sentences: A bloody hostage situation in Mali

As many as 27 hostages were killed in an attack in Mali linked to al-Qaeda; Donald Trump seems surprisingly all right with "registering" American Muslims; and Princeton reconsiders its love of Woodrow Wilson.

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

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TOP NEWS

Hostages in Mali

Habibou Kouyate/AFP/Getty Images

• As many as 27 people were killed in Bamako, the capital of Mali, on Friday morning after gunmen stormed a Radisson hotel and took "about 100" hostages. Malian soldiers entered the building and freed the hostages, albeit at considerable human cost.

  [NYT / Dionne Searcey and Adam Nossiter]

• Al-Mourabitoun, an Islamist militant group, said in a statement that it was responsible for the attack, along with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the regional al Qaeda franchise.

  [CNN / Jason Hanna and Ed Payne]

• Ever since a military coup overthrew the democratically elected president of Mali (which was up to that point one of West Africa's most stable democracies) in 2012, the country has struggled with an Islamist insurgency. UN-backed troops, led by France, helped beat back the Islamists in 2013, democratic elections were held again, and a peace deal was signed in June. But attacks have continued nonetheless.

  [NYT]

• France still has 800 troops in northern Mali, as part of a 3,500 troop regional force, and feels a certain obligation to the nation as it's a former colony; the Mali shooting thus serves as another Islamist blow against France just a week after the Paris attacks.

  [Reuters / Tiemoko Diallo]

• Of course, ISIS (which did the Paris attack) and the al-Qaeda (which did the Mali attack) are different groups, and in fact rivals; an al-Qaeda supporter said Friday that ISIS "should learn a thing or two" from the Mali attack.

  [NYT / Dionne Searcey and Adam Nossiter]

• The US has a very limited number of troops in Mali as well; a Special Ops unit member helped escorts guests evacuated from the hotel.

  [Washington Post / Kodji Siby, Kevin Sieff, and Brian Murphy]

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Marvel Civil War but for like actual human beings

Scott Olson/Getty Images

• Donald Trump told NBC News' Vaughn Hillyard that he "would certainly implement" a database system to track Muslims in the US.

  [NBC News / Vaughn Hillyard]

• But while Hillyard proceeded to describe this as "Trump's plan" and compare it to Nazi registration of Jews, Hillyard was the one who actually introduced the idea in the conversation. That's not as bad — but Trump still definitely assented to the proposal.

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

• Hillary Clinton attacked the comments as "shocking rhetoric" that "should be denounced by all seeking to lead this country."

  [Twitter / Hillary Clinton]

• A number of Trump's GOP rivals denounced the remarks. Even Ted Cruz, who has generally refrained from attacking Trump, commented: "I'm a big fan of Donald Trump's but I'm not a fan of government registries of American citizens."

  [NBC News / Andrew Rafferty]

• Trump tried to clarify matters on Twitter, but still endorsed "surveillance" and a "watchlist."

  [Twitter / Donald Trump]

• As Vox's Matt Yglesias explains, Trump's comments fit into a broader trend of Islamophobia in conservatives' response to the Paris attacks. This is a sharp break from the Bush administration's emphasis on respecting and praising non-radical Muslims.

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

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Straight up racist that sucker was, simple and plain

Apic/Getty Images

• Students at Princeton walked out of class and occupied university president Christopher Eisgruber's office on Wednseday, demanding, among other things, that Woodrow Wilson's name be removed from the Wilson School for Public & International Affairs and from Wilson College, one of the school's residential facilities.

  [The Daily Princetonian / Hannah Waxman and Do-Hyeong Myeong]

• Eisgruber and the protesters reached a deal today, with Eisgruber promising to initiate conversations on removing Wilson's name. But beyond the campus, the protests have provoked a reconsideration of Wilson's legacy on civil rights and race.

  [The Daily Princetonian / Do-Hyeong Myeong]

• Wilson was probably the worst post-Civil War president when it comes to race relations. He re-segregated much of the federal government, and was a huge defender of the Ku Klux Klan in his academic writing.

  [Vox / Dylan Matthews]

• Wilson is one of two presidents, along with James Madison, to have graduated from Princeton. But his service as the university's president from 1902 to 1910 identified him even more tightly with the school.

  [BBC]

• The case against removing his name: "History is full of things we would rather forget. But removing them is not the way to go. Besides, if you take the name off every building and institution named for a historical figure who was Wilson-level lousy, we’d have few institutions left."

  [Washington Post / Alexandra Petri]

• The case for removing his name: "the University is telling its marginalized community and the outside world that it values its bleached-clean version of history over the prolonged discomfort and alienation of students of color."

  [The Daily Princetonian / Esther Maddox]

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MISCELLANEOUS

There are already enough physical copies of Adele's new album that if you stacked them all on top of each other, they would be four times taller than Mount Everest. [Fusion / Kelsey McKinney]

• Red mercury is one of the most sought-after bomb materials for terrorist groups, including ISIS. It also isn't a real thing.

  [NYT / CJ Chivers]

• The history of Hillary Clinton's name changes — Hillary Rodham during her husband's first term as Arkansas governor, then Hillary Rodham Clinton, now just Hillary Clinton — is a fascinating case study of feminist name politics in the 1970s and onward.

  [Washington Post / Janell Ross]

• Anyone who's ever watched Who Wants to Be a Millionaire — or who's wanted to be on a game show — should read Justin Peters' account on his second appearance on the show, after a hugely disappointing first try.

  [Slate / Justin Peters]

• This Sunday is the 5th anniversary of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. If you want to read a wildly wrong ranking of the tracks that inexplicably doesn't place "So Appalled" last, see here.

  [Uproxx / Ryan Joseph]

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VERBATIM

"I don’t deny or condemn the fear that has swelled since the Paris attacks. But fear can be overcome. We can take a deep breath, stand up straight and make a realistic assessment of risk." [NYT / Jay Inslee]

• "What about fucking A? What is this A doing? Is it standing in for another swearword? What the fuck is this A in fucking A?

  [Slate / John Kelly]

• "In the first pres­id­en­tial de­bate this fall, Sanders cited Den­mark as an ex­ample of a so­cial­ist coun­try. The young­er Sanders (and any self-re­spect­ing so­cial­ist of the 1960s) would have re­garded these words as apostasy."

  [National Journal / John Judis]

• "One song on the album, 'Kill V Maim,' is written from the perspective of Al Pacino in The Godfather Part II. Except he’s a vampire who can switch gender and travel through space."

  [Grimes to Q Magazine / Matt Allen]

• "The claim that intentions do not and should not matter is a notion that is bandied about casually in some circles. But it is an erroneous, vacuous, mischievous notion that a thoughtful person should abjure."

  [The American Prospect / Randall Kennedy]

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LISTEN TO THIS

The Weeds: Retirement age, terrorism, and C-sections [Vox / Sarah Kliff, Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias]

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