Vox Sentences: Obama and Putin's excruciatingly awkward day at the UN

Obama and Putin side-eye each other in front of the UN's General Assembly; briny water on Mars; and a vote for Catalan independence.

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

TOP NEWS

Barack and Vladimir are Frenemies

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

• Both President Obama and Russian PM Vladimir Putin spoke at the UN today, as part of the General Assembly's "annual general debate" when heads of state fly in to deliver addresses.

  [White House]

• In one section of an impassioned speech, Obama deplored the "building of walls to keep out immigrants." That's probably a reference to Hungary, which built a fence this summer to keep out Syrian refugees — not, as CNN thought, to Donald Trump.

  [David Freddoso via Twitter]

• But the real tension was between Obama and Putin. Obama's speech was basically an extended subtweet — alleging that "some major powers" (cough Putin cough) were violating international law (cough Ukraine cough).

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• Putin, for his part, spent most of his speech calling on the UN to take out ISIS — which would, totally coincidentally, make life easier for Putin's ally, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• All of this was a great warmup for Obama and Putin's private meeting this afternoon to discuss Syria — a meeting that each claims was the other guy's idea.

  [New York Times / Peter Baker]

• This tremendously awkward photo, taken before the private meeting, pretty much sums up the vibe of the day.

  [Mark Knoller via Twitter]

• Meanwhile, before talking to Putin, Obama hosted a summit on UN peacekeeping — which UN reporter Mark Goldberg argues is "under unprecedented strain."

  [UN Dispatch / Mark Goldberg]

Mares Marineris

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

• In a paper published today, scientists have produced direct evidence that liquid water is currently flowing on the surface of Mars.

  [The Verge / Loren Grush]

• There's been circumstantial evidence of running water on Mars for years — so this study isn't the first to "discover" water on Mars, just the best evidence we have yet.

  [Scientific American / Alfred S. McEwen]

• But it's still a big deal. For one thing, the fact that the water is "briny" makes it more likely that it could support life.

  [The Atlantic / Ed Yong]

• NASA hyped the discovery over the weekend by announcing it had solved a "Mars mystery." This appears to have backfired: people expected an announcement about discovering life on Mars, and were disappointed when it was just water.

  [BuzzFeed / Kelly Oakes]

• But as a NASA scientist pointed out today, we already know the answer to "is there life on Mars?" There probably is, thanks to microbes, from Earth, transported by one of NASA's rovers.

  [Science Channel via Facebook]

• Postscript: Rush Limbaugh can't get too excited about the discovery, because it's only a matter of time before it's used to advance the "leftist agenda."

  [Politico / Eliza Collins]

Són lliures?

David Ramos/Getty Images

• Pro-independence parties won a majority of seats in a regional election in the Spanish region of Catalunya (which is somehow still Anglicized as Catalonia in English) on Sunday.

  [BBC / Tom Burridge]

• The parties argue they have a "clear mandate" to pursue independence. Their professed plan: build up capacity for a national government, then declare independence in 18 months.

  [Reuters / Julian Toyer]

• In reality, nothing so drastic is likely to happen. The Spanish government would make secession very complicated.

  [BBC / Tom Burridge]

• It's more likely that the new Catalan government will just negotiate for Spain to recognize a referendum on independence. (The Spanish parliament overwhelmingly rejected a petition for one earlier this year.)

  [Euractiv]

• A majority of Catalonians say they don't necessarily need full independence, as long as Spain gives them more freedom of language and more favorable taxation.

  [Reuters / Julian Toyer]

• Catalonia has always been a distinct region, but as it's prospered industrially it's felt more resentful of Spain taking its money — which is, of course, one big reason Spain doesn't want it to secede.

  [The Telegraph / Harriet Alexander]

MISCELLANEOUS

Chinatown has somehow resisted the tide of gentrification that's rendered most of Manhattan unaffordable. How? [NY Mag / Nick Tabor]

• The Trinidad Sour is a cocktail whose main ingredient — making up a third of the liquid — is Angostura bitters. Somehow (Dylan is more surprised than Dara by this) it doesn't taste disgusting.

  [Washington Post / M. Carrie Allan]

• James Franco interviewed his own feminine side because of course he did.

  [i-D / James Franco]

• Reality TV has dominated network TV for fiteen years now. But its reign looks like it's about to end.

  [NY Mag / Josef Adalian]

• JustFab is a billion-dollar Silicon Valley startup. It's also receiving thousands of complaints for behaving like a marketing scam.

  [BuzzFeed / Sapna Maheshwari ]

VERBATIM

"There is not one human problem that could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise." [Gore Vidal via New Republic / Blake Bailey]

• "We lost our daughter to a mass shooter and now owe $203,000 to his ammo dealer."

  [Huffington Post / Lonnie and Sandy Phillips]

• "Making a meal for two women who are, collectively, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, and actresses on the cusp of superstardom is not easy."

  [NY Mag / Lynn Hirschberg]

• "Confiding in friends that you will soon be flying Spirit Airlines tends to elicit the same response as if you had just confessed to putting your parents in a home."

  [New Republic / John Paul Rollert]

• "If securities laws were like gambling laws, it would be illegal for people to buy shares of Google or a United States Treasury bond, because that would be gambling, but legal for them to invest in currency swaps that pay a return if the Swiss franc, Argentine peso and Vietnamese dong together outperform the Swedish krona, Mexican peso and South Korean won."

  [NYT / Neil Irwin]

WATCH THIS

These 11 actors play more than 100 Simpsons characters [YouTube / Joss Fong, Sara Masetti, Danush Parvaneh]

Vox / Joss Fong, Sara Masetti, Danush Parvaneh

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