Vox Sentences: Jerusalem’s violence may have hit a tipping point

1. Five dead in Jerusalem

An Ultra Orthodox Jewish man cries during the funeral of Rabbi Moshe Twersky on November 18, 2014 in Jerusalem, Israel. (Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images)

• Four rabbis (three American-Israelis, one British-Israeli) and a police officer were murdered at an Orthodox synagogue in West Jerusalem.

  [NYT / Jodi Rudoren and Isabel Kershner]

• The shooters have been identified as Udai Abu Jamal and Ghassan Abu Jamal, cousins and members of the Marxist-Leninist group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

  [Washington Post / Ishaan Tharoor]

• PFLP has claimed responsibility but it's unclear if the attack was organized by the group rather than the cousins independently.

• The attack follows months of clashes between East Jerusalem's Arab residents and Israeli police, which were escalated by the murder of a Palestinian teenager by Israeli extremists in July.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the demolition of Udai and Ghassan Abu Jamal's homes.

  [Jerusalem Post / Herb Keinon and Ben Hartman]

• Netanyahu accused Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas of helping to incite the attack, a claim the head of Israel's domestic security service rejected.

  [Jerusalem Post / Lahav Harkov]

• Abbas condemned the attack, while Hamas praised it as "an appropriate and functional response to the crimes of the occupation."

  [Haaretz / Jack Khoury]

• The Israeli public safety minister's response might include loosening gun regulations to make it easier for Israelis to arm themselves in self-defense.

  [Jerusalem Post / Ben Hartman]

2. No Keystone Green-Light

Protesters are led away after disrupting the US Senate vote on the Keystone XL Pipeline Bill. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

• A bill to fast-track approval of the Keystone XL pipeline failed to break a Senate filibuster, getting 59 votes out of the 60 it needed.

  [Vox / Brad Plumer]

• The next Senate, with 54 Republicans and 9 of the 14 Democrats who voted yes today, will almost certainly approve the bill.

• Not up to speed on Keystone? This explainer will get you there.

  [Vox / Brad Plumer]

• Canadian oil can already travel through a smaller pipeline to Illinois and by rail, so some have argued the significance Keystone XL specifically is overblown.

  [Politico / Darren Goode]

• 350.org, a major anti-Keystone group, responds: "Rather than letting Congress continue to pantomime for Big Oil, President Obama should step up and reject this dirty tar sands pipeline once and for all."

  [350.org / May Boeve]

3. Uber fail

Uber bottle openers. (Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for NYCWFF)

• A top Uber executive, Emil Michael, mused about digging up personal information and trip data about journalists critical to the company.

  [BuzzFeed / Ben Smith]

• Amazingly, he thought this was a smart thing to talk about at a dinner party full of journalists.

• He specifically targeted Pando's Sarah Lacy, who criticized the company's handling of cases where drivers have attacked female passengers.

• Lacy responds: "What possible comment could I give … to sum up the terror I felt over an attack at my family?"

  [Pando / Sarah Lacy]

• This raises a lot of questions about Uber's seriousness about keeping user data private generally.

  [Vox / Tim Lee]

• "Uber is a major company. And it's time to start acting like it. Not all rules are made to be broken."

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

• "The Smartest Bro in the Room": a profile of Uber CEO Travis Kalanick.

  [San Francisco Magazine / Ellen Cushing]

4. Misc.

• Modafinil is safe, non-addictive, and makes you smarter; why aren't we letting everyone use it?

  [Uehiro Center / Joao Fabiano]

• Eric Holder could clear the way for medical marijuana if he wanted to — so why doesn't he?

  [Washington Post / Chris Ingraham]

• 16 people have been executed after their lawyers missed the deadline for a federal habeas corpus petition.

  [Marshall Project / Ken Armstrong]

• Study finds that news stories about dogs get more readers, surprising no one.

  [The Atlantic / Joe Pinsker]

• A British five-year-old passed a Microsoft IT technician exam.

  [Slate / Lily Hay Newman]

• Are computers the reason economic recoveries are so slow to create jobs these days?

  [Columbia / Miguel Morin]

• How swearing is like saying "please."

  [Slate / Sandhya Sundaresan]

5. Verbatim

• "The question you need to ask yourself is how could you possibly make a rational decision about whether or not to become a vampire?"

  [Edge / LA Paul]

• "Music has entered the environment as an atmospheric element, like the wind, and in that capacity should not be subject to control and compensation."

  [The Guardian / Steve Albini]

• "There's a high possibility that I bought reefer from Idris [Elba]."

  [Dave Chappelle to GQ / Marc Anthony Green]

• "Firestone served as a source of food, fuel, trucks and cash used by Taylor’s ragtag rebel army."

  [ProPublica / Christian Miller and Jonathan Jones]