Vox Sentences: The Fed’s very strange decision to hike interest rates

The Fed hikes interest rates for the first time since 2006; a mistrial for a Batimore cop in the death of Freddie Gray; and the greatest media mystery of 2015, solved?

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

TOP NEWS

The rate hikes will continue until morale improves

Getty / Chip Somodevilla

• Welp, it happened. The Federal Reserve has brought up interest rates for the first time since 2006 — all the way to .25 percent.

  [Business Insider / Akin Oyedele]

• The real news in the Fed's announcement today, however, is that it actually projected inflation — the very thing it's trying to avoid by raising rates — to be lower than it did back in September, when it decided not to raise interest rates.

• That means that interest rates, though they're going to keep rising, are projected to rise more slowly than the Fed thought they would this fall.

  [Bloomberg / Christopher Condon and Craig Torres]

• As Vox's Timothy Lee points out, though, talking about what the Fed "projects" rates to be is silly. The Fed itself sets the rates. So since inflation is low, and interest rates are controllable, the Fed doesn't have to raise rates at all.

  [Vox / Timothy B. Lee]

• Other countries that have raised rates in similar circumstances have regretted it, and cut rates back down again. The Fed thinks the US will be different.

  [Washington Post / Matt O'Brien]

• This Washington Post article explains what all of this might mean for your mortgage, if you are the sort of person who might be interested in that.

  [Washington Post / Jonnelle Marte and Thad Moore]

• Vox's Tim Lee has an explainer on interest rates and what they mean if you're not taking out a mortgage.

  [Vox / Timothy B. Lee]

Why the first officer to go on trial for Freddie Gray's death got a mistrial

Baltimore Sun via Getty / Jerry Jackson

• A mistrial has been declared in the trial of William Porter, one of six Baltimore police officers charged in the April death of Freddie Gray.

  [BuzzFeed News / Joel Anderson]

• The jury in Porter's case couldn't agree on any of the charges. They told the judge yesterday they were deadlocked, but the judge sent them back for another day of deliberation to no avail.

  [Baltimore Sun / Kevin Rector, Justin Fenton and Pamela Wood]

• Many legal observers believe the case against Porter wasn't as strong as the case against some of the other police officers. Several law enforcement officials testified that Porter had done all he could by the time he arrived, and that the blame for Gray's death lay with the officers who arrested him to begin with.

  [BuzzFeed News / Joel Anderson]

• In fact, the mistrial raises the prospect that prosecutor Marilyn Mosby may have been too aggressive in "overcharging" the officers involved in the case.

  [The Atlantic / David A. Graham]

• The Baltimore police appear to anticipate protests in the wake of the mistrial. On Wednesday afternoon, they had already arrested 2 young protesters.

  [Baltimore Sun / Yvonne Wenger, Kevin Rector and Carrie Wells]

• For more on the trials against the officers in Gray's death, read Vox's German Lopez.

  [Vox / German Lopez]

The Mystery Of The Secret Newspaper Magnate

AFP via Getty / Aaron Tam

• One of the greatest media mysteries of 2015 — who owns the Las Vegas Review Journal? — may have been solved.

• Here's what happened. Last week, the Review Journal was bought for $140 million, in cash. But the owner didn't tell anyone who they were — even the reporters.

  [NYT / Ravi Somaiya]

• The reporters, being reporters, reported it out. As of this morning, they'd traced their buyer back to a man closely associated with Las Vegas billionaire and Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson.

  [Las Vegas Review Journal / James DeHaven]

• On Wednesday afternoon, Fortune confirmed the connection: Adelson is in fact the Review-Journal's new owner.

  [Fortune / Dan Primack]

• The next question is why Adelson wanted to keep his ownership a secret. Maybe it was to keep it from interfering with his political interests — like his hosting of last night's Republican debate.

  [New York magazine / Ed Kilgore]

• While Adelson hasn't decided who to support yet, it's rumored that he likes Marco Rubio — while his wife likes Ted Cruz.

  [Miami Herald / Alex Leary]

• On the other hand, if Adelson bought the Review-Journal to use its influence for political ends, he was going to have to tell its writers what those political ends were at some point.

  [Fortune / Dan Primack]

• Another possibility for the secrecy: Adelson and the Review-Journal have an acrimonious history. Adelson once sued a columnist there to the point of bankruptcy — a story the columnist himself tells in this Daily Beast article.

  [The Daily Beast / John L. Smith]

MISCELLANEOUS

A gripping story about what happened after one woman retracted her rape accusation. [ProPublica / T. Christian Miller and the Marshall Project / Ken Armstrong]

• Wheaton College, which is a high-quality evangelical school, just suspended a professor for saying Christians and Muslims worship the same God. This is a very thoughtful take on the matter.

  [Religion News / Tobin Grant]

• How addicts' relatives can help them without forcing them to hit "rock bottom" first.

  [Boston Globe / Burt Helm]

• Now both Hillary Clinton AND Ted Cruz are trying to use The Princess Bride in their campaigns and I (Dara) am going to need them to stop.

  [Hillary Clinton]

• An appalling story of abuse and mistreatment at the United States Postal Service.

  [The Morning News / Jess Stoner]

VERBATIM

"Expect to hear more about Afghanistan over the next year, because a bad situation is turning much worse." [The Spectator (UK) / Ahmed Rashid]

• "It is not hard, after all, to picture him conniving at the Congress of Vienna, or plotting murders in the Medici court."

  [The Guardian / Thomas Meaney]

• "Our duty in aut­ism is not to cure but to re­lieve suf­fer­ing and to max­im­ize each per­son’s po­ten­tial."

  [John Elder Robison to National Journal / Eric Garcia]

• "Pasties are pies, technically, but for the purposes of this chart, they're the wrong kind."

  [Eater / Jacob Harris]

• "So how is it that Little Melvin is being seen in movie theaters dressed in the most ridiculous fashion. Why would Barry Levinson do that?"

  [Melvin Williams to the Baltimore Sun / David Simon]

WATCH THIS

The rise of ISIS, explained in 6 minutes [YouTube / Vox]

Vox / Johnny Harris and Max Fisher

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