Vox Sentences: Prepare for the Ferguson grand jury announcement

1. The wait in Ferguson is over

Demonstrators march through the streets while protesting the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown on November 23, 2014 in St. Louis, Missouri. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

• After three months of deliberation, the grand jury investigating Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson's fatal shooting of Michael Brown has come to a decision.

  [Vox / German Lopez]

• The decision is expected to be announced tonight, most likely at 9 pm Eastern (8 pm local time).

• "Announcing at night allows for rush hour traffic to clear, schools to get all children home."

  [Washington Post / Wesley Lowery]

• The jury could decide the shooting was justified if they conclude Wilson reasonably believed his life was in danger or that Brown was a violent felon trying to escape

  [Vox / Dara Lind]

• Even if there's no indictment, St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch will release grand jury documents to the public.

  [St. Louis Post-Dispatch / Robert Patrick]

• Schools will be closed in Ferguson tomorrow.

  [Ferguson-Florissant School District]

• And local police are stocking up on riot gear in anticipation of protests.

  [Huffington Post / Ryan Reilly]

• Need more context? Here are 11 essential facts about Brown's killing and the ensuing protests.

  [Vox / Amanda Taub]

2. Chuck, chucked

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel walks up the Pentagon steps during an honor cordon with New Zealand Minister of Defense Gerry Brownlee, November 24, 2014 in Arlington, Virginia. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

• Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has resigned under pressure from the White House.

  [NYT / Helene Cooper]

• The basic reasons: he hasn't made much progress in Afghanistan or against ISIS, he's an ineffective manager, and he isn't seen as a valuable policy advisor.

  [Vox / Max Fisher]

• "Hagel would sit through entire meetings in Situation Room without uttering a word."

  [Washington Post / Rajiv Chandrasekaran]

• He also "ceded much of the job’s public dimension, like explaining the administration’s military policies to Congress, to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey."

  [NYT / Mark Landler]

• The three most likely replacements are former Undersecretary Michèle Flournoy, former Deputy Secretary Ashton Carter, and Sen. Jack Reed.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp and Andrew Prokop]

• Flournoy's probably the most likely and would be the first female Secretary; Reed has said he's not interested.

  [Providence Journal / Tom Mooney]

• While pro-Israel groups opposed his nomination, Hagel had very good relationships with the Israeli government; defense minister Moshe Ya'alon called him a "true friend of Israel's."

  [Jerusalem Post / Herb Keinon]

• Max Fisher: Hagel "was bad at his job in no small part because Obama designed the job to be impossible, by shutting out agencies such as the Pentagon and concentrating policymaking within his too-small inner circle."

  [Vox / Max Fisher]

3. Grant me an Iran deal, but not yet

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif attends a panel discussion during the 50th Munich Security Conference (MSC) in the Bayerischer Hof hotel on February 2, 2014 in Munich, Germany. (Joerg Koch/Getty Images)

• Today was the deadline for an Iran nuclear deals, but negotiators extended it to March 1.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• And even that's not the ultimate deadline; they have until July 1 for a detailed agreement.

• Three big issues a deal needs to address: how many centrifuges Iran gets to keep, what happens to the enriched uranium it has now, and what should be done to prevent it from developing plutonium.

  [NYT / Michael Gordon]

• The case for optimism: "The temporary agreement struck a year ago, which stays in place as the talks continue, is much better for the U.S. and its partners than it is for Iran."

  [Bloomberg View]

• The case for pessimism: "The more deadlines that get extended, the less the deadlines have much meaning."

  [Washington Post / Daniel Drezner]

• Negotiation expert William Ury called the extension a "sign of health."

  [The Atlantic / Uri Friedman]

4. Misc.

• Finland, which stayed out of NATO through the Cold War, is now thinking of joining.

  [Mother Jones / Kevin Drum]

• Former LA mayor Richard Riordan led the charge for term limits in the city, and now calls that "the worst mistake of my life."

  [LA Times / Jim Newton]

• The case for paying off student debt instead of investing in the stock market.

  [Bloomberg View / Noah Smith]

• A five paragraph essay against five paragraph essays.

  [Freddie deBoer]

• The mayor of Seattle pardoned Tofurky, because of course he did.

  [Washington Post / Reid Wilson]

5. Verbatim

• "Obama and Merkel are like 'two hit men in the same room. They don’t have to talk—both are quiet, both are killers.'"

  [A "longtime political associate" of Angela Merkel's via New Yorker / George Packer]

• "Rep. John McMillan, the Dixiecrat who chaired the House Committee on the District of Columbia until 1973, sent [DC mayor Walter] Washington a truckload of watermelons to 'celebrate' his receipt of Washington’s first city budget."

  [BuzzFeed / Adam Serwer]

• "Most people who drink to excess or binge drink are not alcoholics."

  [HealthDay / Steven Reinberg]

• "Pitch Perfect … is a film about, and in protest against, 9/11."

  [CookStProductions via Slate / Sharan Shetty]

• "Who will challenge the American pathology that says that a boy who walks unarmed is acting French?"

  [The Atlantic / Ta-Nehisi Coates]