Vox Sentences: Another shooting at a house of worship

Vox Sentences: Another shooting at a house of worship

Vox Sentences is your daily digest for what’s happening in the world. Sign up for the Vox Sentences newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox Monday through Friday, or view the Vox Sentences archive for past editions.

A deadly shooting at a California synagogue; Spain’s election is a victory for both socialists and far-right voters.


A shooting at a synagogue leaves one dead

 Sandy Huffaker/AFP/Getty Images
  • A gunman opened fired at a synagogue in Poway, California, on Saturday, killing one woman and injuring three others. [NYT / Jill Cowan]
  • The 19-year-old suspect walked into the synagogue on the last day of Passover with an assault rifle. When his weapon jammed, he fled the scene and later turned himself in to authorities. [NYMag / Chas Danner]
  • The shooter also posted an anti-Semitic manifesto online that championed the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooter and Adolf Hitler, and claimed responsibility for a fire at a mosque in March. Authorities have referred to the shooting as a hate crime. [LA Times / Kristina Davis, Sarah Parvini, J. Harry Jones, and Cindy Chang]
  • Lori Kaye, 60, died while trying to shield the rabbi from bullets. An 8-year-old girl was among those injured during the shooting. [Vox / Gabriela Resto-Montero]
  • A day after the shooting, Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, who lost at least one finger due to the attack, held an emotional press conference. As he recounted the events, he said, “What happened to us happened to all of us.” [CBS News / Brian Pascus and Peter Martinez]
  • The shooting is part of an unsettling trend of rising hate crimes in the United States. Just six months ago, 11 people died in the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh. [LA Times / Jaweed Kaleem]

The polarization of Spain’s politics

  • The center-left Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party won Spain’s election Sunday, a stark contrast from the many right-wing governments that are taking over in Europe. [NYT / Raphael Minder]
  • The party, however, is short of gaining a majority in parliament, with only 123 of the 350 seats. Even if it partners with the far-left party, which gained 42 seats, it would not reach the 176 seats needed for a coalition government — meaning it will have to reach out to smaller parties. [NPR / Matthew Schwartz]
  • The main conservative opposition party only won half the seats it did in 2016, marking the group’s worst performance in history. [NYT / Raphael Minder]
  • But Vox, the country’s far-right and anti-immigration party, made headway this election, winning 24 seats. In the span of a few years, it’s gone from a political afterthought to a legitimate voice in parliament. [CNN / Jack Guy, Laura Perez-Maestro, and Sheena McKenzie]
  • The election also saw a surge in voter turnout at 76 percent, up 9 percent from 2016. [BBC]
  • The current prime minister and socialist party leader, Pedro Sánchez, faces a major territorial crisis with Catalonia, which is trying to secede from Spain. All eyes are on him to see how he deals with the conflict, which has been a polarizing political issue for the country. [Vox / Jen Kirby]
  • Sánchez will also have to deal with the fragmented politics of Spain, where the influence of small parties such as Vox is growing. Experts say the road to forming a government will likely be long and complicated, especially with the European parliamentary elections coming up next month. [AP / Aritz Parra and Joseph Wilson]

Miscellaneous

  • First Airbnb disrupted the hotel industry. Now the Marriott hotel chain is launching an apartment rental service. [CNN / Jordan Valinsky]
  • Terror suspects are growing old at Guantanamo, and the facility is trying to figure out how to handle the growing medical needs of the aging detainees. [The Atlantic / Katie Bo Williams]
  • Indonesia, a country with a population of 270 million, just held its largest election — and ballots are being counted manually. More than 300 people have died from exhaustion as a result. [Quartz / Georgia Frances King]
  • A parrot in Brazil was trained to say, “Mama, police,” whenever law enforcement was near. The bird is now in custody after its owners were arrested in a drug raid. [Washington Post / Meagan Flynn]
  • A beluga whale was found off Norway’s coast wearing a special harness with a camera attachment; experts suspect it was trained by the Russian navy. [BBC]

Verbatim

“We need to battle darkness with light. No matter how dark the world is, we need to think of a little bit of light pushes away a lot of darkness.” [Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein during a press conference after the Poway synagogue shooting]


Watch this: This lake has legal rights, just like you

Why the “rights of nature” could be the next frontier for environmentalism. [YouTube / Liz Scheltens]


Read more

K-pop is being rocked by a sex scandal. It’s part of a bigger societal problem.

Why is framing a picture so expensive?

Netflix’s wonderful Street Food focuses on the human aspect of ordinary food

White identity politics is about more than racism

What’s missing from the conversation about late abortions, explained by a doctor

Author: Catherine Kim

Read More

RSS
Follow by Email