Vox Sentences: Will the Boy Scouts go bankrupt?

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The Senate votes to withdraw American support from Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen; the Boy Scouts consider bankruptcy.

Rebuking Trump on Yemen

Ronen Tivony/NurPhoto via Getty Images

• The Senate voted 56 to 41 on Thursday to revoke American military support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen — a move that is mostly symbolic, but is still a rebuke of President Trump. [Vox / Jen Kirby]
• In a separate vote, the Senate also passed a resolution to hold Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS, responsible for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a US resident. [NYT / Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Eric Schmitt]
• All Senate Democrats voted in favor of withdrawing military support, as did seven Senate Republicans. The Khashoggi resolution was approved unanimously without a roll call vote. [Washington Post / Karoun Demirjian]
• The CIA concluded that MBS was responsible for Khashoggi’s murder, but Trump has continued to accept the crown prince’s denials — and will almost certainly veto the Senate bill even if it makes it to his desk. [Vox / Jen Kirby]
• Saudi Arabia is bombing Yemen as part of a civil war that has led to widespread starvation; the UN has warned 13 million people are at risk of famine. [Guardian / Hannah Summers]
• This examination of how a bomb built in Arizona ended up killing civilians in Yemen is one of the best things I’ve read to understand the war, Saudi Arabia’s role in it, and the United States’s role in supporting Saudi Arabia. [NYT / Jeffrey E. Stern]

Prepared… for bankruptcy?

• Lawsuits over allegations of sexual abuse and declining membership might have driven the Boy Scouts, a 108-year-old organization, to the brink of bankruptcy: the company has reportedly hired lawyers to explore a possible Chapter 11 filing. [WSJ / Katy Stech Ferek]
• The Boy Scouts of America said in a statement that there were “no imminent actions or immediate decisions expected.” [AP / David Crary]
• Records from the Boy Scouts released in 2012 found that for nearly a century, the organization had kept records of allegations of child sexual abuse by volunteers — but often failed to protect victims. [Reuters / Chris Francescani and Teresa Carson]
• Membership in the Boy Scouts has also been declining for at least a decade, even as the organization has worked to become more inclusive, opening its ranks to gay and transgender boys and then, beginning in 2019, girls. [NYT / Maya Salam]

Miscellaneous

• Dozens of bomb threats were called and emailed to schools, hospitals, businesses, and universities around the country. They appeared to be hoaxes. [NBC / Daniella Silva]
• Miami reported no hate crimes to the FBI between 2012 and 2016, but the police department’s reports included a man stabbed by an attacker who yelled about “Spanish people,” a homeless man who punched a Latino restaurant-goer by saying “go back to your country,” and a man threatened with a gun by an attacker who insulted his sexual orientation. [Buzzfeed News / Peter Aldhous]
• Every day, 100,000 people still log into Neopets, the virtual pet universe many millennials loved and abandoned in the early 2000s. [Medium / Nicole Carpenter]
• Does Scrabble rely too much on luck? Yes, but not in the way you think. [Nautilus / Kevin McElwee]

Verbatim

“I’m Sue Potter. I read about the Visible Human in the newspaper, and I want to donate my body.” [National Geographic’s Cathy Newman writes on a woman who was adamant that photographs of her body be put on the internet after she died — and the journey that made it happen]

Watch this: Why advertisers are tracking your emojis

It’s not just Google keywords anymore. Advertisers are targeting you based on your emojis. [YouTube / Alexandra Cardinale]

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