Vox Sentences: Panama’s aftershocks topple Iceland’s prime minister

The resignation of Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson; one Libyan factional government down, one to go; Wisconsin primary preview.

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

TOP NEWS

Country that still believes in elves opens door to electing pirates

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

• Iceland's prime minister, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, resigned Tuesday, a day after the "Panama Papers" leak revealed his wife held millions of dollars in secret offshore accounts. Vox's Libby Nelson and Zack Beauchamp explain.

  [Vox / Libby Nelson and Zack Beauchamp]

• The roots of the scandal lie in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Iceland was arguably the European country hit hardest, and it's continued to shape the country's politics.

  [Vanity Fair / Michael Lewis]

• In fact, Gunnlaugsson made his name in politics by arguing that Iceland should be tougher on its foreign creditors — which makes it particularly awkward that he's since been revealed to be, essentially, one of those creditors himself.

  [Süddeutsche Zeitung via ICIJ / Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer]

• Gunnlaugsson's party has said it will simply name a new prime minister. But other parties might force an election. The current government was facing labor unrest and discontent long before the Panama Papers leaked.

  [Al Jazeera America / Ned Resnikoff]

• The likely beneficiary of new elections would be Iceland's Pirate Party, a left-libertarian coalition that might, or might not, move the country substantially to the left.

  [Jacobin / Vidar Thorsteinsson]

• If the possibility of a dominant Pirate Party strikes you as odd, bear in mind that this is a country where actual environmental protests take place on behalf of invisible elves.

  [The Atlantic / Ryan Jacobs]

Stumbling toward unity

Mahmud Turkia/AFP/Getty Images

• One of Libya's two competing governments has ceded power to the new, United Nations–backed "unity government" in the nation's capital of Tripoli.

  [AFP / Mohamad Ali Harissi]

• The unity government arrived in Tripoli last week by sea, because the old (now-dissolved) "Tripoli government" was enforcing a no-fly zone. But the Tripoli militias weren't willing to engage in ground fighting.

  [BBC ]

• Another competing government, to the east, has not yet acknowledged the unity government.

  [Reuters / Ahmed Elulami]

• Somewhat counterintuitively, the establishment of the unity government makes another Western intervention in Libya look more feasible.

  [Washington Post / Missy Ryan and Sudarsan Raghavan]

• The UN has been warning about the rise of ISIS in Libya, and Western countries are interested in intervening to counter it, but they want relative stability in the Libyan government first.

  [The Atlantic / Adam Chandler]

• All of this, of course, has raised questions — not least for President Obama himself — about how wise it was for the US to go into Libya to begin with. (Obama's take: not wise.)

  [The Atlantic / Jeffrey Goldberg]

• But Shadi Hamid makes the case that Obama was wiser than he thought, and that all indications are that without intervention, Libya would look like Syria.

  [Vox / Shadi Hamid]

It's on, Wisconsin

Scott Olson/Getty Images

• Wisconsin is holding its presidential primaries for both parties Tuesday. Polls close at 8 pm Central time, 9 pm Eastern.

  [Vox / Libby Nelson]

• Ted Cruz will probably win the Republican primary. Bernie Sanders will probably win the Democratic primary.

  [NPR / Jessica Taylor]

• The question for Sanders is whether he'll have a huge enough win to close in on Hillary Clinton's delegate gap — and boost him in her home state of New York, which votes in two weeks.

  [Vox / Jeff Stein]

• The failure of frontrunner Donald Trump to gain traction in Wisconsin, after what has (even by Trumpian standards) been a strange week for the campaign, has raised questions about whether he is finally collapsing.

  [Vox / Andrew Prokop]

• The worst signs for Trump come from within the house: According to Politico, his campaign is dismantling its field organizations in some key swing states, which is generally not what you want to do if you're planning to run in a general election.

  [Politico / Kenneth P. Vogel, Ben Schreckinger, and Eli Stokols]

• But that wouldn't keep Trump from getting the nomination. And he shouldn't worry about that, because "informal adviser" Roger Stone is literally promising to send Trump supporters to the hotel rooms of any Republican National Convention delegate who betrays Trump (which is a threat and is not okay).

  [Talking Points Memo / Sarah Jerde]

MISCELLANEOUS

I (Dylan) (also Dara) want to be half as cool as 9-year-old ace crime reporter Hilde Kate Lysiak when I grow up. [Washington Post / Tom Jackman]

• George Mason recently renamed its law school the Antonin Scalia School of Law. They've changed the marketing to the "Antonin Scalia Law School." If you want to understand why, try looking at the acronyms.

  [WSJ / Jacob Gershman]

• Three years ago, Happy Endings died a little-noticed, too-early death. In retrospect, it stands as one of the best sitcoms of the decade.

  [Complex / Steven Horowitz]

• For women, Facebook is littered with ads for hyper-cheap ($11.99 for a gorgeous dress!) clothes. They're scams — and very successful ones.

  [BuzzFeed / Sapna Maheshwari and Beimeng Fu]

• American Psycho caused a scandal when it was released in 1991. Now, it looks ahead of its time.

  [NYT / Dwight Garner]

VERBATIM

"Worst part of Skyrim was when I found that dog whose owner died in a cabin, and then I of course had to adopt the dog because I'm not a monster." [Patrick Lenton]

• "During a Libertarian forum that aired on the Fox Business Network on Friday night, the three candidates debated issues such as whether a Jewish baker should be required to bake a Nazi wedding cake and pondered questions such as 'what is a drug?' and 'why do we have war?' Mr. McAfee assured voters that he was never charged with murdering his neighbor, and Mr. Petersen argued that all foreign aid should be stopped."

  [NYT / Alan Rappeport]

• "I was feeling cheeky one afternoon when I posted to Facebook that the '90s hit 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' was the worst song of all time … From the reaction to my post, I could see I wasn't the only one who still held a grudge against a harmless '90s earworm. My friends piled on, creating a delightful little bonfire of disdain, but I had forgotten one detail: A guy from the band was in my friend circle."

  [NPR / Sarah Hepola]

• "Inducing and seducing them with gift baskets ... ‘Come on over the border and here’s a gift basket of teddy bears and soccer balls.’"

  [Sarah Palin via Washington Post / Chris Cillizza]

• "Several representatives argued that given the Freshman Class Committee’s $10,000 budget, spending close to 10 percent of annual funds on berries for a single night would be a misuse of Council funds."

  [The Crimson / Brian Yu]

WATCH THIS

When the BBC won April Fools' Day in 1957 [YouTube / Carlos Waters and Phil Edwards]

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