Vox Sentences: Paris’s double hostage situation

1. Hostages in Paris

Police mobilize at the hostage situation at Port de Vincennes on January 9, 2015 in Paris, France. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

• Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, suspects in the shooting at the magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, were killed by police.

  [Business Insider / Pamela Engel, MIchael Kelley, and Dina Spector]

• They had taken a hostage at a printing shop north of Paris. The hostage escaped unharmed.

  [NYT / Dan Bilefsky and Maïa de la Baume]

• The raid that eventually killed the Kouachi brothers was proceeded by hours of negotiations, in which they made it clear they wanted to die as martyrs.

• After the brothers were surrounded, Amedy Coulibaly took hostages at a kosher supermarket in Paris. He is also believed to have assassinated a police officer yesterday.

  [The Guardian / Matthew Weaver , Josh Halliday, Alexandra Topping, Jonathan Bucks, Alan Yuhas and Raya Jalabi]

• Paris police said Coulibaly promised to shoot the hostages unless the Kouachi brothers were released.

  [AP]

• That hostage situation also ended in a raid, reportedly with at least four hostages and Coulibaly killed and 15 hostages released.

  [The Guardian / Matthew Weaver , Josh Halliday, Alexandra Topping, Jonathan Bucks, Alan Yuhas and Raya Jalabi]

• Both Chérif Kouachi and Coulibaly spoke to reporters during the hostage situations.

  [Vox / Libby Nelson]

• Kouachi said he was sent by al-Qaeda's Yemeni branch. Coulibaly said he was part of ISIS.

• Bafflingly, Coulibaly said he coordinated with the Kouachis, despite al-Qaeda and ISIS being enemies.

• Coulibaly allegedly committed the police killing with Hayat Boumeddiene, who is still at large.

  [NPR / Eyder Peralta]

2. Free community college

(Shutterstock)

• President Obama is calling on Congress to make the first two years of community college free.

  [Vox / Libby Nelson]

• The federal government would bear 75 percent of the cost, and states the remaining 25 percent.

• Obama unveiled the plan in Tennessee, whose Republican governor is implementing a similar plan.

  [Politico / Allie Grasgreen]

• Community college isn't what a lot of people think of when they hear "college," but there are about as many undergrads in two-year public schools as four-year public schools.

  [Department of Education]

• For the poorest students, community college is already covered by financial aid; the middle class are the biggest winners from Obama's plan.

  [Vox / Libby Nelson]

• One thing the plan doesn't address: barriers to graduating from college once you're there. 66 percent of first-time community college students don't get a degree within six years.

• Making tuition free doesn't cover other expenses, like room and board.

  [Washington Post / Danielle Douglas-Gabriel]

• Mike Konczal: this is far preferable to means-tested aid, which penalizes the poor for earning more.

  [The Nation / Mike Konczal]

3. Misc.

• Mitt Romney is considering a third presidential run, because sure.

  [Vox / Andrew Prokop]

• Some monstrous cities are banning sledding in parks. This is a bad idea.

  [Slate / Melinda Wenner Moyer]

• Wes Anderson's cinematographer, Robert Yeoman, walks through nine of the best shots the duo ever filmed.

  [Vulture / Kyle Buchanan]

• Heads-up fixed-limit Texas hold 'em poker has been solved by a computer program — for games of two players, anyway.

  [Marginal Revolution / Alex Tabarrok]

• Seals are really monstrous creatures.

  [BBC / Matt Walker]

4. Verbatim

• "You can decline to purchase Charlie Hebdo on the grounds that its cartoons are racist and inflammatory and simultaneously believe that Charlie Hebdo has the right to publish those cartoons freely and without the threat of violence."

  [Slate / LV Anderson]

• "In theory, a priest wearing a lucha libre mask sounds strange."

  [Vice / Eric Nusbaum]

• "No big deal, but abolishing leap seconds could unmoor us from the sun forever."

  [The Atlantic / Robinson Meyer]

• "Who can be churlish after being serenaded by an automaton and massaged by a robot chair?"

  [NY Mag / Annie Lowrey]

• ""Wendy and Lucy" is rated R …The rating seems to reflect, above all, an impulse to protect children from learning that people are lonely and that life can be hard."

  [NYT / AO Scott]

• "Susan Pierce couldn’t pinpoint the moment she fell in love with Norman Grenier — poor Norman, serious and sensitive Norman — but it was the night she overdosed at her boyfriend Dickie’s place in 1982 that something inside of her first stirred."

  [Down East / Brian Kelvin]