Vox Sentences: Manchester, united

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A shocking terror attack in northern England; Trump releases his first budget; the president of the Philippines declares "limited" martial law.

An unsettlingly unfamiliar attack

Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

• The United Kingdom is still on critical terror alert — meaning more attacks may be imminent — after a suicide bomber killed 22 people and wounded dozens more at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, on Monday. [Vox / Alex Ward]
• The victims (consistent with Grande’s fan base) were largely young women and girls, including an 8-year-old; the bombing shattered a celebratory, joyful atmosphere, likely leaving lasting psychic marks on many of the attendees (not to mention Grande herself). [The Guardian / Alexis Petridis]
• The bomber — who’s been claimed by ISIS — has been identified as Salman Abedi, a 23-year-old born in Manchester to Libyan-immigrant parents, who was known to acquaintances as someone with extreme views but not as a possible mass murderer. [The Guardian / Ian Cobain, Frances Perraudin, Steven Morris, and Nazia Parveen]
• (It’s worth pointing out that many political scientists, sociologists, and other experts believe that reporting on the details of terrorist attacks or the people who carry them out helps the terrorists... [BuzzFeed News / Zeynep Tufekci]
• ...and may prime people to be more willing to accept authoritarian policies.) [Vox / Carlos Maza]
• (It’s also worth pointing out that in Britain, news outlets often don’t report details of incidents, out of deference to ongoing law enforcement investigations; in this case, UK officials kept updating American officials, who would then turn around and leak to US outlets, which would then publish the information — freaking out the UK.) [BuzzFeed News / Mitch Prothero]
• Manchester has seen terrorist attacks before; in 1996, the IRA detonated an enormous truck bomb there, wounding hundreds. But no one was killed — while Monday’s attack seemed designed to inflict maximum casualties. [Washington Post / Adam Morris]
• And while Europe has had somewhat-frequent attacks in recent years, Monday’s was unusual in that it was carried out by a suicide bomber — someone able to choose a spot for maximum death around him. [Vox / Alex Ward]
• It’s a lot to take on for a country that thought — thanks to some luck disrupting plots in recent months, not to mention the cozy isolationism promised by Brexit backers — that it was safe from European problems. [The Atlantic / Linda Kinstler]
• But the fact is that no one is really safe from homegrown terrorism right now. Here are the best recommendations for disrupting it (but they still aren’t foolproof). [Slate / Daniel Byman​]

Making budgets great again

Alex Wong/Getty Images

• President Trump unveiled his first budget — titled “A New Foundation for American Greatness” — on Tuesday. You can read the whole thing at the Office of Management and Budget’s website. [OMB]
• The biggest change included is a 47 percent cut to Medicaid, achieved through assuming that the Republican replacement for Obamacare passes, and then another $610 billion in cuts are added on top of that. [Vox / Sarah Kliff]
• Medicaid is often pigeonholed as a program for the poor, but in part because it also covers people with disabilities, a wide swath of Americans have had contact with it. 26 percent have been covered through Medicaid at some point, 6 percent have had a child in the program, and 25 percent have a friend or family member who's been on it; in total, about 56 percent of Americans have some kind of connection. [Kaiser Family Foundation / Ashley Kirzinger, Elise Sugarman, and Mollyann Brodie]
• The budget hits other important safety net programs, like Social Security Disability Insurance, the earned income tax credit, and, perhaps most notably, food stamps, a.k.a. SNAP, which gets a 25 percent cut despite copious evidence that it reduces hunger and improves the health of children who receive it well into adulthood. [Vox / Julia Belluz]
• The budget contains no new details on Trump's tax plan. However, it assumes that the tax plan will not increase the deficit because it will increase economic growth — and then goes ahead and assumes that that increased growth can also be used to help eliminate the deficit over 10 years. Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers calls this the “most egregious accounting error in a presidential budget in the nearly 40 years I have been tracking them.” [Washington Post / Larry Summers]
• Asked about this egregious error, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin responded, "This is a preliminary document that will be refined." (This is false. Budget requests are not "preliminary documents.") [David Wessel]
• It's unlikely that many, or any, of the budget's proposals will become law in their original form. But the budget still matters. Cuts like those in the budget could help fund the tax cut package Republicans are set to consider after health care, and Center on Budget and Policy Priorities director and budget expert Bob Greenstein states, "I would not rule out that these things will be seriously considered and could actually occur." [Huffington Post / Arthur Delaney​]

TFW you have to leave Vladimir Putin to go home and declare martial law

Photo by Damir Sagolj-Pool/Getty Images

• Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte — known for his mercurial diplomacy, propensity for stirring up social panics, and fondness for Vladimir Putin and China — was supposed to be in Russia this week to meet Putin and obtain “advanced weaponry” from Russia to deal with “Islamist militants” in the Philippines. [The Guardian / Shaun Walker]
• But his trip was cut short Tuesday, as he flew back to the Philippines to deal with civil unrest in the city of Marawi involving the aforementioned militants. [Inquirer.net / Leila B. Salaverria, and Anthony Q. Esguerra]
• The group involved in the fighting, Abu Sayyaf, is a violent separatist group “linked to ISIS,” though really, who isn’t these days. [BBC]
• Duterte’s government has declared martial law over the entire island of Mindanao, where Marawi is located. Duterte is constitutionally able to extend martial law for only 60 days (and theoretically, the legislature or judiciary could end it sooner). [NPR / Colin Dwyer]
• Given Duterte’s authoritarian tendencies, though, it’s hard to imagine him letting go early. This is, after all, the man who’s presided over 7,000 killings of drug dealers and users in his first nine months in office — the majority of them committed by vigilante death squads. [The Guardian / Kate Lamb]
• In fact, before leaving for Russia, Duterte was last seen threatening to kill European human rights activists criticizing his conduct of the drug war. [The Standard / John Paolo Bencito and Maricel V. Cruz]
• Despite this, Duterte continues to enjoy broad and loyal support among many Filipinos. [BBC]
• He also has the full-throated support of the president of the United States. An April call between the two leaders, the transcript of which was leaked late Tuesday, shows Trump calling Duterte a “good man” who is doing an “unbelievable job on the drug problem.” Remember: 7,000 deaths in nine months. [The Intercept / Jeremy Scahill, Alex Emmons, and Ryan Grim​]

Miscellaneous

• Jared Kushner's real estate company sued a woman dying of pancreatic cancer for rent on an apartment she had already vacated. [ProPublica / Alec MacGillis]
• Chevy loves to use “regular people” in its car commercials. What’s it like to be one of them? [A.V. Club / Marah Eakin]
• What it's like to work in the only abortion clinic in your state (in one of the seven states that only has one clinic left). [Vice / Allison McCann]
• Donald Trump's vocal style has changed dramatically in the past three decades, becoming less fluent and complex and using a simpler vocabulary. What's going on? [STAT / Sharon Begley]
• Placebos can work, even if you know they're placebos. So why not start prescribing them more? [The Guardian / Nic Fleming]

Verbatim

• “A man accused of shooting his two roommates Friday in a Tampa Palms apartment told police he shared neo-Nazi beliefs with the men until he converted to Islam then killed them because they showed disrespect for his faith.” [Tampa Bay Times / Tony Marrero and John Martin]
• “I did accost a member who was minding his own business. But I believe you don't get to be a Nazi from 9-5. ... He’s a Nazi and he should be treated like a Nazi.” [C. Christine Fair to DCist / Rachel Sadon]
• “What struck me the most about all of the songs, across all genres, was how they ached with sadness because of some happiness that came before. The reason all of the singers felt it was necessary to cry — to emote outwardly — was because they also felt it had been necessary to open up and accept happiness in the first place. They were mourning what had once been wonderful and beautiful.” [Catapult / Molly Priddy]
• “A dispatch from early May viewed by Bloomberg listed dozens of alleged incidents. One person reported a manager to HR for allegedly ‘joking about raping one of his direct reports,’ the email said. ‘He was promoted.’ … In another, a writer alleges that a ‘Noogler’ — new Googler — was invited by an engineer to get drinks with a group of colleagues off campus. It was her second week of work. ‘Upon arriving, discovered there was no group,’ the email said. ‘Subsequently informed by the engineer that she was expected to “sleep with everyone” because that's the culture here.’" [Bloomberg / Ellen Huet and Mark Bergen]
• “Boyle has two modes: murder and blowjob.” [Jonathan Strong to Washingtonian / Luke Mullins]

Watch this: How tap dancing was made in America

Imported from immigrants, but assembled in America. [Vox / Camila Cibils and Gina Barton]

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