The horrible details of the Taliban’s child massacre in Pakistan

1. Killing in Peshawar

Activists of Pakistan Tehreek e Insaaf (PTI) light candles for the victims of an attack by Taliban gunmen on a school in Peshawar, in Karachi on December 16, 2014. (Asif Hassan/AFP/Getty Images)

• At least 135 people, including over 100 children, were killed by Taliban gunmen at a school in Peshawar, Pakistan.

  [Vox / Amanda Taub]

• A Taliban spokesman: "We selected the army's school for the attack because the government is targeting our families and females. We want them to feel the pain."

  [Reuters / Jibran Ahmad and Mehreen Zahra-Malik]

• Peshawar is near Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), where the Taliban is heavily active.

• While most of the deaths were due to gunshots, some of the attackers also blew themselves up when Pakistani security arrived.

  [NYT / Ismail Khan and Salman Masood]

• At least in part, the killings are likely intended to fight perceptions of Taliban weakness after recent Pakistani military wins against them.

  [Vox / Amanda Taub]

• Civilian terrorism casualties in Pakistan had been falling considerably before the attack.

  [FiveThirtyEight / Carl Bialik]

• The Afghan Taliban condemned the Pakistani Taliban, calling the attack "against the basics of Islam."

  [Reuters]

2. Jeb the Explorer

Andy Jacobsohn / Getty

• Jeb Bush is forming an exploratory committee for a potential 2016 presidential run.

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

• It's been eight years since Bush was Florida governor, so here's a reminder of his views on the issues.

  [Vox / Andrew Prokop]

• Bush is a favorite of GOP donors, alongside Gov. Chris Christie and Mitt Romney.

  [NYT / Nicholas Confessore]

• Bush has taken some stands the GOP base doesn't like, but he's not that much less conservative than Romney or Sen. John McCain.

  [FiveThirtyEight / Nate Silver]

• Bush's support for Common Core education standards is supposedly a liability, but education just isn't that big of an issue in presidential campaigns.

  [Vox / Libby Nelson]

• Brian Beutler: Obama's immigration executive action doomed Bush's candidacy.

  [New Republic / Brian Beutler]

• Matt Yglesias: No, it actually lets Jeb be pro-immigration but anti-Obama.

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

• This sets up the potential for a Bush-Clinton general election, for better or worse.

  [NYT / Ross Douthat]

• Sen. Marco Rubio, a fellow Floridian, says Bush's announcement won't affect his own decision on whether to run.

  [The Hill / David McCabe]

• But having another immigration-sympathetic Floridian in the race does reduce Rubio's odds of victory considerably.

  [New Republic / Danny Vinik]

3. Russia tries and fails to save the ruble

A Russian ruble. (Центробанк РФ)

• A dramatic increase in interest rates by Russia's central bank failed to stop its currency, the ruble, from falling even further compared to the dollar.

  [NYT / Andrew Kramer]

• Higher interest rates also have the downside of slowing economic growth, which will prolong Russia's slump.

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

• If rate hikes won't work, Russia might have to resort to an IMF bailout or capital controls, which are fairly extreme measrures.

  [Washington Post / Matt O'Brien]

• The plummeting price of oil bears a lot of the blame for the ruble's fall. Here's why oil's getting so cheap.

  [Vox / Brad Plumer]

• The crisis is terrible news for countries like Tajikistan that rely on remittances from workers in Russia, and for countries like Germany that export to Russia a lot.

  [BuzzFeed / Tom Gara]

• The crash has led Russians to convert their money into dollars or euros and buy up durable consumer goods, like furniture and jewelry, to keep their savings from losing value.

  [FT / Jack Farchy and Courtney Weaver]

• Apple has halted online sales in Russia, saying the ruble is too unstable.

  [USA Today / Mike Snider and Jon Swartz]

• Dan Drezner: Worsening economic circumstances could force Putin to back off on his support for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

  [Washington Post / Dan Drezner]

• "For several weeks, Russians were receiving the news about the fall of their national currency with a serenity bordering on nonchalance … But this humorous attitude gave way to outright panic on Monday."

  [Businessweek / Leonid Ragozin]

• Obama is set to sign new anti-Russia sanctions, which certainly won't help Putin turn the economy around.

  [NYT / Peter Baker]

4. Misc.

• Torture doesn't work. Befriending interrogation targets does.

  [The Atlantic / Olga Khazan]

• This island in Alaska is already being destroyed by climate change.

  [Grist / Kate Sheppard]

• Indianapolis Colts QB Andrew Luck's unique approach to trash-talking: complimenting the opposing team's defensive players when they hit him.

  [WSJ / Kevin Clark]

• A federal appeals court ruled that requiring condoms in porn doesn't violate the First Amendment.

  [Washington Post / Hunter Schwarz]

• This year, it costs 1.66¢ to make a penny and 8.09¢ to make a nickel.

  [Washington Post / Christopher Ingraham]

5. Verbatim

• "Tree sales are a lot less like Survivor with Christmas trees and a lot more like the Knights Templar with Christmas trees."

  [Men's Health / Patrick Wensink]

• "The flight deck is the bustling hub of this nuclear-powered behemoth, which is home to 5,200 sailors and officers for nearly 10 months at a time."

  [NYT / Eric Schmitt]

• "His entire Hollywood career had been built on devising heinous and impossible situations to test a person's mettle, and now he had wound up in just such a mess."

  [The Hollywood Reporter / Scott Johnson]

• "Last year, inspectors found that a Tennessee lumber mill was employing a 14-year-old who was operating a chainsaw, removing lumber from a conveyor, and loading scrap wood into a wood chipper."

  [The Atlantic / Alana Semuels]

• "Every generation of studio titan is less apologetic than the one before."

  [Grantland / Mark Harris]

• "Who is to say that it is me who is using my body correctly — me, sitting there, lumpen, eating room-service steaks at Caesars as I hunch over a keyboard for the ninth hour of a day and try to get 5,000 steps from my Fitbit, getting unsolicited diet hints from female fighters, who genuinely seem to want to help me."

  [Matter / Taffy Brodesser-Akner]