Vox Sentences: Nigeria’s government may have massacred hundreds of Shiites

Nigeria's government may have massacred 200 or more Shiite Muslims; LA schools close due to bomb hoax; another GOP debate.

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

TOP NEWS

Reports of a massacre in Nigeria

Mohammed Elshamy/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

• Nigerian activists are claiming that the government killed at least 200 Shiite Muslims — and possibly as many as 1,000 — during a demonstration over the weekend.

  [Today.ng]

• The government was targeting a group called the Islamic Movement, which aims to establish an "Iran-type" Islamic regime in Nigeria. Zack Beauchamp explains.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• The Islamic Movement had been gathering weapons in recent weeks. Private intelligence firm SBM theorizes that with the Nigerian government focused on defeating the Sunni Boko Haram, Shiite groups might have been emboldened to escalate.

  [SBM Intelligence]

• But whether those weapons were actually used over the weekend is unclear. The government accuses Shiite protesters of trying to kill a general, but other sources think they just threw rocks at his car.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• The government, on the other hand, has definitely been willing to meet protests with lethal force. An additional 3 protesters were killed Tuesday protesting the weekend's attack.

  [AP]

An "overreaction" in LA

Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

• Los Angeles' public schools were closed today, thanks to a terrorist bomb threat that appears to be a hoax.

  [LA Times / Veronica Rocha , Hailey Branson-Potts, Stephen Ceasar and Richard A. Serrano]

• New York received a similar threat, but dismissed it readily — for one thing, the sender didn't capitalize the A in Allah. NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton called LA's response an "overreaction."

  [NY Daily News / Chelsia Rose Marcus, Dan Good, Nancy Dillon and Rich Schapiro]

• The most commonly cited (and most accurate) statistic says that 90 percent of bomb threats are false, though that number dates back to 1976.

  [National Criminal Justice Reference Service]

• Conversely, though, as of 2002 only 1 percent of school bombings were preceded by a bomb threat.

  [Center for Problem-Oriented Policing / Graeme R. Newman]

• In an environment in which — according to a recent Gallup poll — a plurality of Americans see terrorism as the biggest problem facing the country, however, it's not hard to imagine that overreactions like this will get more common rather than less.

  [Gallup / Rebecca Riffkin]

The Final* GOP Debate

Getty

• Tonight, the remaining Republican presidential candidates will gather on CNN with the single aim of taking down Donald Trump.

  [CNN / Stephen Collinson]

• This isn't the last debate of the campaign — although Jeb Bush's campaign seems to think it is.

  [Derek Willis via Twitter]

• But non-Trump candidates are running out of time. Trump has been atop the polls for six months — and is opening up his widest lead yet.

  [The Hill / Jesse Byrnes]

• The only candidate who might benefit from Trump's reign is Ted Cruz. Trump made Cruz look mainstream, and if Trump collapses it's easy to see Cruz as the nominee.

  [Vox / Ezra Klein]

• Meanwhile, Marco Rubio — who has been strangely absent from actually campaigning in early states — might need to fight to make himself relevant.

  [Vox / Andrew Prokop]

MISCELLANEOUS

Flint, MI switched its water source last year. Now it has declared a state of emergency as lead levels have nearly doubled. [Washington Post / Yanan Wang]

• The Bernie Sanders campaign has led to boom times for Democratic Socialists of America.

  [WSJ / Peter Nicholas]

• One legacy of slavery: the South has been less innovative than the North for over 150 years.

  [Washington Center for Equitable Growth / John Majewski]

• US jails hold more than four times as many people as they did in 1970. And the fastest growth wasn't in cities; it was in small, rural counties.

  [AP / Jake Pearson]

• The Las Vegas Review Journal was bought by a new owner for $140 million in cash last week. And no one knows who the new owner is.

  [New York Times / Ravi Somaiya]

VERBATIM

"Only 4 percent of the 805-minute Star Wars film canon, stretching from Episodes I through VI, involves clearly discernible Force use." [Bloomberg / Jeremy Scott Diamond, Mark Glassman, Chandra Illick, and Chloe Whiteaker]

• "When I reached the actual party, the first thing I saw was CEO Marissa Mayer herself behind a series of velvet ropes, dressed in a long sequined gown and seated on a pure white arm chair."

  [Vice / Anonymous]

• "When a documentary feels obliged to spend a few minutes explaining what '300 years' means, it crosses the line from simple and straightforward to condescending."

  [AV Club / Noel Murray]

• "[Star Wars is] a pastiche, as mashed-up and hyper-referential as any movie from Quentin Tarantino. It takes the blasters of Flash Gordon and puts them in the low-slung holsters of John Ford’s gunslingers. It takes Kurosawa’s samurai masters and sends them to Rick’s Café Américain from Casablanca. It takes the plot of The Hidden Fortress, pours it into Joseph Campbell’s mythological mold, and tops it all off with the climax from The Dam Busters."

  [Star Wars / Forrest Wickman]

• "He is alone, the parents gone in the morning. It is nothing to him. He revels in their tedious wake. Eats milk and cream. Breaks and steals property and rubs himself in oils strange … It is not long before the robbers come."

  [The Awl / Jordan Hall]

WATCH THIS

El Niño is back. Here's how it works. [YouTube / Brad Plumer, Joss Fong, Gina Barton]

Vox / Joss Fong, Gina Barton

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 reasons that we can't rely only 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. We can’t do that if we have a paywall.

That’s why we also turn to you, our readers, to help us keep Vox free. If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today?

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