Vox Sentences: A shooting in Chattanooga

5 dead in Chattanooga

Members of the FBI Evidence Response Team work the scene in the parking lot of a Armed Forces Career Center/National Guard recruitment office where Abdulazeez opened fire before killing four people at another military facility. (Jason Davis/Getty Images)

• A gunman — identified as 24-year-old Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez — has shot and killed four Marines and wounded three others at two military facilities in Chattanooga, Tennessee; he also died in the attack.

  [Vox / German Lopez and Timothy B. Lee]

• Federal authorities have yet to identify a motive; the National Counterterrorism Center reports "no apparent nexus to terrorism" and no credible claim of responsibility from any terrorist group.

  [AP]

• Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced the FBI would be conducting a "national security investigation."

  [Justice Department]

• Abdulazeez was reportedly born in Kuwait but is a naturalized US citizen.

  [NYT / Richard Fausset, Alan Blinder, and Michael Schmidt]

• That's basically what we know at this point; it's premature to speculate as to Abdulazeez's motives.

"No Child Left Behind" left behind

(Melanie Stetson Freeman—The Christian Science Monitor/Getty Images)

• The Senate voted 81-17 today to replace the No Child Left Behind Act with the Every Child Achieves Act, which would give states more leeway for setting goals for schools and handling schools that fail to meet them.

  [Vox / Libby Nelson]

• Annual testing requirements are kept in place, but the federal government would, under the act, let states decide how to use the test results.

  [Senate HELP committee]

• Fourteen Republicans voted no (including presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio) as did three Democrats: Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, and Chris Murphy.

  [AP]

• Booker attacked the bill for failing to "provide meaningful accountability measures that address the disparate achievement gaps for low-income students and students of color."

  [Politico / Ryan Hutchins]

• While Warren praised the bill for "moving away from rigid standardized tests" she attacked it for "eliminat[ing] basic, fundamental safeguards to ensure that federal dollars are actually used to improve both schools and educational outcomes for those students who are often ignored."

  [Elizabeth Warren]

• Civil rights groups like the NAACP are with them, criticizing the bill for not requiring states to intervene when schools are failing on standardized tests.

  [Vox / Libby Nelson]

• But conservatives who oppose federal intervention in education and teachers unions which oppose accountability both backed the bill.

  [Vox / Libby Nelson]

• Republican opponents like Cruz say the bill didn't go far enough in eliminating federal mandates: "While this bill makes some improvements to the status quo, it ultimately falls short of empowering parents and local school districts. To that end, it is a missed opportunity for meaningful change."

  [Ted Cruz]

The next front for LGBTQ rights

(Justin Sullivan/Getty)

• The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has concluded that the Civil Rights Act of 1964's ban on sex discrimination also bars employers from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.

  [BuzzFeed / Chris Geidner]

• Here's the catch: the EEOC's rulings aren't the law of the land. Congress or the Supreme Court still needs to act for sexual orientation discrimination to be banned in practice.

  [Vox / German Lopez]

• As the ACLU's Joshua Block told German Lopez: "We think the EEOC's position is absolutely the correct legal position, and it should be very persuasive to any court, including the Supreme Court. But when you're talking about basic human rights … you want explicit protections in the law."

• The group Freedom to Work — which specifically works to ban anti-LGBTQ workplace discrimination — responded by calling for a court ruling codifying the interpretation, while the Human Rights Campaign called for Congressional action.

  [Chris Geidner]

• Freedom to Work's Tico Almeida: "I bet we can get LGBT workplace or housing cases to the US Supreme Court sooner than the US House of Representatives will allow an up-or-down vote on a comprehensive LGBT non-discrimination bill."

  [BuzzFeed / Chris Geidner]

• The ruling doesn't apply to trans people — but the EEOC has already ruled that anti-trans discrimination violates the Civil Rights Act, and federal courts have so far agreed.

  [National Center for Transgender Equality / Dana Beyer, Jillian Weiss, Riki Wilchins]

Misc.

• The Suicide Squad movie looks amazing. Here's a guide to the character for those of us who haven't read the comics.

  [Polygon / Susana Polo]

• Federal appeals court judge Alex Kozinski has written a bracing indictment of the way criminal trials are conducted, and an impressive list of potential reforms (like letting jurors ask witnesses questions, and "repeal[ing] three felonies a day for three years."

  [Georgetown Law Journal / Alex Kozinski]

• Getting out of prison isn't just hard because you have to find a job, or because every potential employer and landlord is suspicious of you. It's hard because the world has changed so much since you went in that you can't figure out how to pop your car trunk anymore.

  [NYT Mag / Jon Mooallem]

• Switching the US taxi fleet to self-driving electric cars could cut its energy usage by nearly half.

  [Ars Technica / Jonathan Gitlin]

• I live in a 300 square foot apartment and love it, but even I'm surprised that microunits are catching on in already-cheap cities like Des Moines, Omaha, and Columbus.

  [Bloomberg / Patrick Clark]

Verbatim

• "There you have it. William Carlos Williams: brilliant modernist, producer of snackable content, Twitter visionary before his time. Gah. Forgive me."

  [NY Mag / Annie Lowrey]

• "This week’s gadget describes itself as 'a new way to prepare eggs,' which is accurate in the way that chopping off your legs could be described as a new way to lose weight."

  [The Guardian / Rhik Samadder]

• "The Americans — which the Vox style guide contractually obligates me to refer to as 'the best show on television'…"

  [Vox / Todd VanDerWerff]

• "I fear that the German government, including its social democratic faction, have gambled away in one night all the political capital that a better Germany had accumulated in half a century."

  [Jürgen Habermas to The Guardian / Philip Oltermann]

• "The wife left notes addressed to 'Cleaner' under a magnet on the fridge that said We're staying together for the cat. She slept in the spare bedroom."

  [Vox / Stephanie Land]

Video of the day

• "Hi. Hello. Hello. Could I tell you about this very extraordinary can?"

  [YouTube]

Correction

• Yesterday's newsletter said that the IMF proposed not requiring debt payments from Greece until 2059. The real year is 2053. Apologies!

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