Vox Sentences: Nebraska decides to stop tinkering with the machinery of death

No longer tinkering with the machinery of death

An execution chamber. (Joe Raedle/Newsmakers via Getty Images)

• Nebraska legislators have enacted a law ending the death penalty in the state.

  [Washington Post / Mark Berman]

• Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) had vetoed the measure, but the legislature overrode the veto in a bipartisan 30-to-19 vote.

  [NYT / Julie Bosman]

• Nebraska has America's only unicameral legislature. It's technically nonpartisan, but in practice dominated by Republicans, with 18 conservative senators helping to pass the death penalty repeal.

  [Omaha World-Herald / Joe Duggan and Todd Cooper]

• Republicans in the state oppose the practice because of the cost of the appeals process, botched executions in other states, the difficulty in getting lethal injection drugs, and general moral objections.

  [NYT / Julie Bosman]

• By my count, all 13 Democrats, plus independent Ernie Chambers, voted for repeal, along with 16 Republicans. Nineteen Republicans voted no.

  [Omaha World-Herald / Joe Duggan and Todd Cooper, plus Wikipedia for party affiliations]

• There are currently 10 inmates on the state's death row.

  [Nebraska Department of Correctional Services]

• Nebraska joins 18 other states, plus DC, in getting rid of the punishment.

  [AP / Grant Schulte]

• It's the seventh state to abolish it since 2007; New Jersey, New York, New Mexico, Illinois, Connecticut, and Maryland have done so as well.

  [Death Penalty Information Center]

• It's the first conservative state to abolish the death penalty since North Dakota in 1973.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• Following the vote, Beau McCoy, a legislator supportive of the death penalty, immediately formed "Nebraskans for Justice," a group to explore reinstating the death penalty through a ballot initiative.

  [Omaha World-Herald / Joe Duggan and Todd Cooper]

FIFA frolics

FIFA director of communications Walter de Gregorio, during a press conference held after the arrests. (Philipp Schmidli/Getty Images)

• The Department of Justice has indicted nine officials from FIFA — the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, which governs international soccer — along with five other executives for corruption.

  [Department of Justice]

• The indictments allege that the executives bribed the officials for broadcasting rights to FIFA games; rights to the 2016 Copa America tournament alone allegedly totaled over $110 million.

  [Vox / Amanda Taub]

• Seven of the FIFA officials have already been arrested by Swiss authorities on the US government's request.

  [Federal Department of Justice and Police]

• The Swiss Office of the Attorney General is also opening its own investigation into FIFA having to do with the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. There have been accusations that Russia and Qatar, which are hosting the competitions, bought votes from other countries to win the right to host.

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias and Joseph Stromberg]

• Sports governance expert Roger Pielke Jr.: "In the US, our model for pro sports is somewhat socialistic, and soccer is kind of Wild West. Anything goes. And anything has gone."

  [Vox / Joseph Stromberg]

• A much more important FIFA scandal: migrant workers in Qatar are treated horribly, and one investigation found that one Nepalese migrant working on World Cup-related infrastructure dies every two days.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• The DOJ insisted its investigation has only just begun.

  [NYT / Matt Apuzzo, Stephanie Clifford, and William Rashbaum]

Oopsy doopsy anthrax whoopsie

SCIENCE CHEMICALS. (Shutterstock)

• The Pentagon accidentally shipped live Anthrax to as many as nine government labs across the country.

  [Vox / Sarah Kliff]

• It had intended to send dead samples, something the Pentagon does routinely for research facilities.

  [ABC News / Luis Martinez]

• Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren insisted there was "no known risk to the general public" from the shipment.

  [The Hill / Kristin Wong]

• Last year also saw some government anthrax mishaps. Seventy-five Atlanta-based CDC workers were accidentally exposed to live anthrax that had been mistaken for dead anthrax.

  [Vox / Susannah Locke and Julia Belluz]

• Reminder: we still don't know for sure who was behind the 2001 anthrax attacks. The FBI had a suspect, but he committed suicide before he could be tried, and the FBI's previous guess at a suspect was totally wrong.

  [ProPublica / Stephen Engelberg, Greg Gordon, Jim Gilmore, and Mike Wiser]

Misc.

• You know this emoji?

Unicode via Wired

• It's not supposed to indicate frustration. It's supposed to indicate "triumph." We've all been using it wrong.

  [Wired / Megan Logan]

• ISIS is doing its best to destroy Syria and Iraq's ancient cultural heritage. Morehshin Allahyari is using 3D printing to try to save it.

  [Vice / Ben Valentine]

• Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) spent $82,594 in state funds at the stadium where the New York Jets and Giants play in 2010 and 2011. That's a lot of concessions.

  [Newsweek / Polly Mosendz]

• An excellent fifteen-point plan for fixing Washington, DC.

  [Washington City Paper / Aaron Wiener]

• Letting cell phones into schools hurts test scores.

  [NY Mag / Jesse Singal]

Verbatim

• "Edward Luttwak raises cattle in the Amazon basin and is the author of The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire."

  [London Review of Books]

• "When asked about Johnson’s bill, Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.) gave a thumbs-down and, imitating a game-show buzzer, said only 'Eerrrrrrntt!'"

  [Politico / Jennifer Haberkorn and Rachael Bade]

• "The analog for ethnography students ought to be equally straightforward: if a subject asks you for help in a murder plot, just say no."

  [New Rambler Review / Steven Lubet]

• "We mistake technology for a cure-all because it is a cure-something."

  [Slate / David Auerbach]

• "A radio station in Denmark argued on Tuesday that it was merely fulfilling its public service mandate to provoke debate when the host of a morning show beat a baby rabbit to death with a bicycle pump this week during a live discussion of animal welfare."

  [NYT / Robert Mackey]

Song of the Day

• Ought, "The Weather Song"

  [YouTube]

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