Vox Sentences: Suicide bombings in Nigeria

Bombings in Nigeria

Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari and Nigeria's Senate President Bukola Saraki at Abuja National Mosque on July 17, 2015. (Stringer/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

• More than 60 people have died in apparently coordinated suicide bombings in the towns of Gambe and Damaturu in northeastern Nigeria.

  [The Guardian]

• The attacks — blamed on Boko Haram, the group behind last year's school girl kidnapping that has since aligned with ISIS — came at the end of Ramadan, and hit a market, a mosque, and a prayer ground.

  [LA Times / Robyn Dixon]

• The prayer ground attack was apparently conducted through suicide bombs strapped to an elderly woman and 10-year-old girl.

  [WSJ / Gbenga Akingbule and Drew Hinshaw]

• Boko Haram has recently stepped up its attacks in the wake of President Muhammadu Buhari's election in May.

  [BBC]

• Buhari, a former military dictator of Nigeria from the 1980s, was elected in part due to a belief that his military prowess, and the fact that he's a Muslim Northerner, would make him more effective than his Christian, southern predecessor at fighting Boko Haram.

  [Vox / Katy Lee]

• Buhari is scheduled to meet with President Obama at the White House Monday, and is expected to ask for more US support in combatting Boko Haram.

  [AFP / Ola Awoniyi and Aderogba Obisesan]

In Berlin-Athens news…

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaüble. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

• German lawmakers approved a new bailout of Greece, as part of a new deal that continues harsh austerity measures in the country.

  [NYT / Alison Smale]

• Chancellor Angela Merkel and finance minister Wolfgang Schaüble faced a number of defections from their center-right Christian Democratic Union party and from its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, who argued the bailout wouldn't be repaid and was a waste of German taxpayer money.

  [FT / Stefan Wagstyl]

• Merkel and Schaüble kind of think they have a point; the latter has repeatedly suggested that Greece would be better off leaving the euro entirely than continuing to get bailed out.

  [NYT / Steven Erlanger]

• There's something to that: there's definitely an argument to be made that the eurozone would be stronger without Greece, its worst-performing member, in it.

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

• Complicating matters is the IMF, which is insisting on debt relief for Greece. Under Greece's current deal with its lenders, debt relief is contingent on economic reforms which, despite prime minister Alexis Tsipras and his left-wing Syriza party's initial opposition, Greece has now committed to implementing.

  [FT / Shawn Donnan]

Misc.

• A new study finds that 95 percent of women getting abortions still say it was the right decision three years later.

  [Washington Post / Christopher Ingraham]

• Colorado's program fighting teen pregnancy through IUDs and other long-acting birth control apparently saved the state $5.85 on Medicaid for every $1 spent on it.

  [NYT / Sabrina Tavernise]

• If you, like me, are really looking forward to David Simon's new HBO miniseries, Show Me a Hero, about housing desegregation in Yonkers in the late 1980s, this excerpt from the book it's based on is worth a read.

  [NYT / Lisa Belkin]

• General assistance programs are the safety net of last resort for very poor and unemployable Americans. And states have cut them to the bone.

  [CBPP / Liz Schott and Misha Hill]

Verbatim

• "Michael Bolton making a documentary about Detroit?"

  [Washington Post / Geoff Edgers]

• "Truth, justice, and the American way—that's Bernie. It's also associated with Superman."

  [Jeff Weaver to Mother Jones / Tim Murphy]

• "The website of British low-cost carrier EasyJet instructs cello-carrying customers to 'please add an additional seat during the online booking process and use the passenger name MR SEAT CELLO.'"

  [Now I Know / Dan Lewis]

• "The first 9/11 jokes surfaced online on 9/11. (Here’s one posted to a tasteless jokes board three hours after the first tower fell: Q: What does WTC stand for? A: What trade center?)."

  [Slate / Amanda Hess]

• "Other than that single syllable, he insisted, he had not spoken with or touched another human being, until this night, for twenty-seven years."

  [GQ / Michael Finkel]

Video of the day

• Donald Trump is trolling the Republican Party

  [YouTube]

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